Anti-Religious Bias

 The New York Times is not known for delicate restraint in its treatment of the Catholic Church. Executive editor Bill Keller (despite somehow marrying his second wife in the Church) trashed Pope John Paul the Great in 2002: "One paradox of the Polish pope is that while he is rightly revered for helping bring down the godless Communists, he has replicated something very like the old Communist…

Apparently the Fox entertainment network, which will broadcast Super Bowl XLV on Sunday, rejected an ad for LookUp316.com, as in the biblical verse John 3:16,  because it "[advances] particular beliefs or practices." [h/t Big Hollywood] However the ad itself -- see the embedded video below -- doesn't proselytize, it merely depicts a man watching a football game looking up "John 3:16" on his…

The popular show 'Glee' has caused a stir with lesbian fantasies, gay kissing, teen pregnancy and racy photos of the actors - the new season is sure to display more immorality-promoting content. As 'Gleeks' everywhere eagerly anticipate the return of their show, they should be reminded that it isn't just innocent, happy show tunes that this 'groundbreaking' show promotes. Fox's hit musical/…

New York Times critic Michael Kimmelman was granted the front page of Wednesday’s Arts section for a snobbish chiding of uncouth American conservatives who helped squelch a video some found sacrilegious, by a featured artist in a Smithsonian gay art exhibit: “In Britain, Separation of Art and State.” ("Separation" except for when it comes to actually subsidizing the art, which Britain does…

Media outlets have uncritically trumpeted a story that claims a 1997 letter is a "smoking gun" that proves that Vatican officials warned Irish bishops not to report child abuse to civil authorities. In fact, as a cursory look at the letter reveals, it shows no such thing. This "smoking gun" story exhibits all the hallmarks of just another hit job by the media, so-called victims advocates, and…

The Washington Post on Friday took on Seymour Hersh's outlandish conspiracy theory that "neo-conservative" members of Opus Dei and the Knights of Malta inside the military "overthrew the American government" and are waging a "crusade" against Muslims. The newspaper reported that, contrary to Hersh's claims, General Stanley McChrystal was not a member of either organization, and that there was "…

Liberal columnist Michael Kinsley made light of the Catholic Church's process of recognizing a saint in a Wednesday column for the Los Angeles Times, while simultaneously blasting the Church's opposition to embryonic stem cell research, claiming that the religion was a "main impediment" in developing a cure for Parkinson's disease.

"The press... just doesn't get religion." That quote by William Schneider is the motto of GetReligion.org, a blog devoted to critiquing the media penchant for biased, erroneous, or incomplete media reporting on religious news developments. USA Today's Cathy Lynn Grossman seems to illustrate the wisdom of the quote in her January 3 Faith & Reason blog post linking back to none other than…

In a stunning ten-page declaration recently submitted to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, veteran attorney Donald H. Steier stated that his investigations into claims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have uncovered vast fraud and that his probes have revealed that many accusations are completely false. Counselor Steier has played a role in over one hundred investigations involving…

Newspaper readers probably had raised eyebrows on Christmas Day if they saw Doonesbury's comic strip for this sacred day. A female social worker is chatting with a female soldier and asking her if she gets support out in the field. They have this exchange: SOLDIER: Yes, ma'am, I talk to our chaplain. SOCIAL WORKER: Good. A chaplain can be a good resource. SOLDIER: Mine yells at God a lot…

The metaphor “The War on Christmas” can be mocked – as if Santa and his reindeer are dodging anti-aircraft fire. But many of our public schools have church-and-state sensitivity police with an alarming degree of Santaphobia. Anyone who's attended a school's “winter concert” in December with no traditional Christmas music – not even “Frosty the Snowman” – knows the drill. The vast Christian…

More than nine out of 10 Americans celebrate Christmas - even atheists, agnostics or believers in other faiths, according to surveys by LifeWay Research and USA TODAY/Gallup. They might be roasting chestnuts over an open fire, decking the halls with boughs of holly or trying to get the Chipmunks Christmas song out of their heads, but they are celebrating.

A new Gallup poll is out showing that 40 percent of Americans believe that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so" while 38 percent believe "God guided [the] process" of evolution and only 16 percent believe evolution happened without any help from God. Among the poll's findings was that a full 37 percent with a college…

Here are two stories from this past week: 1. "A [newly released] General Accountability Office (GAO) investigation has found that people with histories of sexual misconduct are still getting hired by school systems across the [United States] ... The biggest problem may be 'passing the trash.' These were cases GAO found in which school systems just let suspected sexual offenders resign, and…