by Jennifer Hahn

On October 20, proponents of Prop 8, a California ballot measure to amend the state's constitution to forbid gay marriage, released the second in a series of ads alleging that if the measure fails to pass children will be forced to learn about same-sex relationships in school.

“Yes on 8″'s new ad features a real Massachusetts couple who sued their school district because their son's second-grade teacher read the class a book about two princes who marry each other. “We tried to stop public schools from teaching children about gay marriage,” says the husband. “But the court said we had no right to object or pull him out of class.”

The mainstream media have done a good job of reporting why it is highly unlikely that California schools will force students to learn about gay marriage. Many stories point out that the state education code does not require schools to teach anything about marriage unless they voluntarily offer comprehensive sex education. In this case, they must “teach respect for marriage and committed relationships.” Other journalists reported that California has a stronger “opt-out” provision than Massachusetts, enabling parents to pull their kids out of any lesson they don't like.

But what's missing is an examination of the fundamental premise behind these ads: that even mentioning gay marriage in public school is tantamount to teaching kids to shoot heroin.  

To be fair, even the “No On 8” campaign has been hesitant to take on the premise that teaching kids about gay marriage is any different than teaching them about straight marriage.  Its response to the ad merely says that Prop 8 “will not affect teaching in schools…It's time to shut down the scare tactics.”

But Prop 8's supporters can only be accused of using scare tactics if their opponents agree that the mention of gay marriage in schools is “scary.”

Instead of just reporting the official lines of the Yes/No On 8 campaigns, journalists could dig a little deeper to expose the unspoken assumptions on both sides of this issue. It seems to me that the teaching-gay-marriage-in-schools narrative is a thinly veiled way of raising the tired idea that gay people are somehow trying to recruit children to their “immoral” lifestyle. An astute reporter would press the “Yes On 8” campaign to be clear about their real meaning and force the “No On 8” campaign to explain why they won't confront this bigotry head on.

Ann Rostow, a columnist for The San Francisco Bay Times, takes both sides to task for their failure to address what the gay marriage debate is really about:

“Throughout this campaign, we have once again hid the face of the same-sex couples and given a free  pass to those in the middle of the electorate who are uncomfortable with gay relationships. Instead of  challenging that atavistic premise, we have nodded our collective heads and said something on the       order of 'Hey, we understand that gay couples make you a little queasy, but for God's sake don't write us out of the constitution.'

You know what that message actually means? It means that it's just fine to feel queasy. It implies that we ourselves feel queasy in a way. We can see your point! It's a losing strategy and it has lost us every same-sex marriage election, save one (Arizona 2004) that we've ever fought.”

This is the kind of analysis that should inform reporting. Obviously Rostow's is an opinion column, and I don't expect journalists to wax poetic about their personal feelings in this campaign. But hers is the type of critical thinking that reveals what's going on below the surface,. Good reporters push their sources. They can't just parrot the official line on either side of a controversy, especially when both groups are attempting to cover up what's really at stake.

Jennifer Hahn, whose work has appeared in Ms. magazine and Los Angeles CityBeat, is currently a master's degree candidate in specialized journalism at USC.

by Tara Graham

While addressing a crowd of supporters at a town hall meeting in Minnesota last Friday, John McCain was compelled to set the record straight when a woman took the mic and said, “I can't trust Obama. I have read about him and he's an Arab.”

“No ma'am. No ma'am,” said McCain. “He's a decent family man [and] citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. That's what this campaign's all about. He's not [an Arab].”

The rampant rumor, which was first published at FreeRepublic.com and later perpetuated through a “cyberwhisper” campaign attributed to Andy Martin,  has followed Obama throughout his presidential campaign. And although McCain's willingness to stop and correct the falsehood is refreshing—as he and Sarah Palin have done little up until this point to quell cries of  “Kill him!” and “Terrorist!” (in reference to Obama) during recent rallies—his response to the rumor falls short. It seems to imply that Arabs are anything but decent people and responsible citizens.

McCain could have said that there's nothing wrong with Arabs, or with Muslims for that matter, but he didn't—and that's a problem.  

Let's rewind to 2006 when Keith Ellison was voted into the House of Representatives to serve Michigan's Fifth District. He was the first Muslim to hold a seat in Congress, and this achievement was celebrated around the world.

Osama A. Siblani, the publisher of The Arab American News, told The New York Times that he considered Ellison's victory “a step forward” because it gave the Muslim community a “sense of belonging.”

“It [also signaled] to the rest of the world that America has nothing against Muslims,” said Siblani. “If we did, [Ellison] wouldn't have been elected.”

Fast forward to the present-day and we find a completely different sentiment: Folks are refusing to vote for Obama because they think he is a Muslim and, in turn, has a terrorist agenda up his suit sleeve.
What happened between 2006 and 2008 to radically change the American perception of the Muslim population?

Some argue that Americans are taking issue with Obama's “secret” Muslim religion as an indirect way of rejecting his race. When McCain expressed his discomfort with the notion of a Muslim in the White House during an interview with BeliefNet a little over a year ago, James Zogby, head of the Arab American Institute, argued that McCain was merely pandering to the religious Right.

So are we to believe that these anti-Muslim sentiments are not genuine, but are merely the means to achieve some other end? Yes and no.

In response to suffering poll numbers, the McCain campaign recently began baiting Obama backlash by pushing his association with William Ayers, a former domestic terrorist with the Weather Underground.

In addition, Sarah Palin accused Obama of  “palling around with terrorists.” And McCain campaign ad pinned the junior senator from Illinois as “too risky for America.”

The aim was to make Obama guilty-(of terrorism)-by-association, but the strategy backfired. It not only reinforced people's misunderstanding of Obama as a practicing Muslim (as intended), it also brought genuine fear of Muslims to the surface—along with the explosive outbursts, booing, and death threats we're now hearing at McCain-Palin rallies. I choose to believe that these blatant displays of intolerance and hate were never intended.
 
But, for the record, Obama hasn't been helping the situation.

Back in June, the Obama campaign reportedly restricted two Muslim women wearing headscarves from sitting behind the senator at a Detroit rally so that the women wouldn't be photographed or filmed in the background of news coverage from the event.  Obama also declined Rep. Ellison's offer to help him campaign in Iowa back in December and later in North Carolina.

If the McCain campaign insists on reinforcing incindiary ideas about Arab and Muslim Americans through fearmongering, then the Obama campaign needs to insist on a change in the current mistreatment and scapegoating of the Muslim population. For lack of a better strategy, the Obama camp has resorted to ignoring this group altogether, which only feeds into the Republican game and leaves many Americans, including the lady at McCain's town hall meeting, living in fear and loathing of each other.  

Where's the “change” in that?

Tara Graham is an Annenberg Graduate Fellow and online journalism M.A. candidate at the University of Southern California.

by Kyla Cullinane

The Los Angeles Times reported that Father Geoffrey Farrow, the priest at a parish that primarily serves Cal State Fresno, was suspended from his job. But the Times story neglects to ask some important questions about the dismissal of Farrow, who also told reporters that he is gay and who used his pulpit to speak out again Proposition 8, a measure that would outlaw gay marriage in California if it passes in November.

According to the article in the Times, it was Farrow's opposition to Prop 8, which would amend the state constitution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, that cost the priest his job. And he's not the only Roman Catholic cleric in California who wants gays to be able to marry. Father Steve Niskanen, who leads a church with an activist bent, according to a 2004 LA Times article, offered the same criticism of Prop 8 on the same day as Father Farrow. Niskanen, however, did not receive the same degree of attention from the media.

Maybe that's because the Farrow story was about more than just Prop 8. Just before his Mass, Farrow gave a TV interview during which he admitted he was gay.  Is that why he was suspended? Or because he used the pulpit to express his pro-gay views and his opposition to Prop 8? And is he celibate or sexually active?  None of this is clear in the LA Times article.

Instead the reporters let Farrow frame the issue in his own words: “”How is marriage protected by intimidating gay and lesbian people into loveless and lonely lives? I am morally compelled to vote no on Proposition 8.” The reporters never offer details about Prop 8. Instead, they leave unchallenged Farrow's claims that both Prop 8 and the Church are antigay, which is what numerous gay media outlets, including As Good As You and the Advocate, would also have us believe.

The LA Times reporters speculate as to why Farrow was suspended, although they are unclear what his official status is now. They quote Farrow's letter from his boss, Bishop Steinbock, which says, “Your statement contradicted the teaching of the Catholic Church and has brought scandal to your parish community as well as the whole Church.” Steinbock also admonished Farrow, who has used his blog to challenge the Church's teaching on homosexuality, against “using the Internet as a means of continuing [his] conflict with the Church's teaching.”

But we're left to wonder: Which teaching of the Catholic Church did Father Farrow contradict? What, exactly, is the source of the conflict? And what is the position of the Church on gay priests anyway? The reporters need to be clear.   

When it comes to the basic issue of the Church's position on Prop 8, we can turn to the California Catholic Conference website, which gives the official public policy statement of the state's Catholic Bishops, who unanimously support Proposition 8. The LA Times article also neglected to mention that point.

And to what degree are Catholic parishes across the state engaged in this debate? That could be an interesting story in itself.  The reporters do mention that Farrow's parish is divided on the issue. But what's the nature of the division, and how many parishioners are opposed to the official position of the Church?

One parishioner says, “We are going through changes right now in society and the Church needs to recognize that.”  What changes? How should the Church respond to those changes? We desperately need some follow up here.

The reporters for the Times might take a look at a recent survey from the non-profit group Faith in Public Life which shows that about half of all young Catholics support same sex marriage. Maybe that shift is what we're seeing play out in Farrow's parish. We'll never know until some sharper reporting is done.

Kyla Cullinane is an Annenberg Fellow in the Master of Specialized Journalism program at USC. Previously, she worked as a prime-time television news anchor in Texas.

In a much ballyhooed cover story, Newsweek proclaimed 1976, “The Year of the Evangelical.”  But 32 years later, many coastal Americans still aren't sure who these believers are, what they want and whether they should be worried about them. Attuned to these concerns, members of the Civilians, a New York City-based acting troupe, traveled to Colorado Springs, the erstwhile evangelical mecca, for answers.

The result is a performance art hybrid—theatrical journalism or journalism as theater, a genre mined in the 1990s by Anna Deavere Smith and more recently the Tectonic Theater's “The Laramie Project.”  The Civilians' offering, “This Beautiful City,” extends these earlier efforts by adding songs to the mix. Given the subject matter, and the centrality of music to contemporary Christian ministry, this turns out to be a smart, if surprising, choice.

In 2006, several Civilians spent ten weeks in Colorado Springs interviewing scores of evangelicals, atheists and others in between. They chose the city because it was home to several large and nationally important evangelical institutions as well as similarly conservative military sites, including Army and Air Force bases, NORAD, the U.S. Air Force Academy and prominent defense contractors.

The combination of zealous Christians and ardent patriots made the city a good spot to plot the intersection of religion and politics. As Civilian Brad Heberlee told the Denver Post, the actors' goal was “to responsibly explore how faith intersects with public life, and ultimately, how that reflects what's happening in our country.”

Coincidentally, the sex-and-drugs scandal that toppled the Rev. Ted Haggard erupted during their stay. Haggard started the now 14,000 member New Life mega-church in his basement. Along with Focus on the Family, James Dobson's ministry, New Life is a pillar of the local evangelical establishment.

The people who built these pillars likewise dream of raising up a beautiful city; some say a “city on a hill.”  But as the play makes clear, their notion of beauty in based on a kind of Christian regimentation that would incorporate evangelical notions of piety (lots of it), family (one man and one woman) and morality (mostly monitoring other people's sexual preferences). Haggard's fall underscores their folly, but the play's take-home lesson is that the vision endures and the project continues. For those of us in California, it's currently called Proposition 8.

As a piece of journalism, the play feels less like an act of discovery than a heavy-handed roll-out of religious clichés: the silver-tongued black preacher, the tongues-speaking, big-haired blonde and the potty-mouthed atheist all have their say. Other attempts at ethnography likewise fall flat.

The city sits at the base of Pike's Peak, and periodic appearances by park rangers remind tourists to stay on the right path, respect the unknown and enjoy—within limits. It's a didactic effect that doesn't help the drama, much less provide investigative insight. The play strives for balance, but it lacks a narrative that explains who evangelicals are, what they want and whether “we” should be worried.

As a work or art, “This Beautiful City” lacks a dramatic center. Ted Haggard's rise and fall could do the trick, but the play would need to be slimmed and trimmed.  That said, the music is good, the stagecraft is nifty and some of the set pieces are a delight to watch. The youth ministry's ferocious interplay of music and lights almost sent me to the amen corner. Likewise, a string of post-Haggard emails set to music gave new life to clichés of both outrage and forgiveness.

The Civilians have it right: All Americans need to understand the deep historic and currently explosive relationship between religion and politics in our country. Their impulse to bring these issues to life through representations that go deeper than traditional journalism is understandable. So instead of complaining about how, why—or even if—”This Beautiful City” fails, I instead challenge journalists. How can you do it better?

Diane Winston

By Andrea Tabor

Going to Mass on “Respect Life Sunday” is always an uncomfortable experience for me.  When the priest starts in on his “respect life” homily, the pews begin to creak as parishioners fidget nervously.  I've seen my mother walk out of church, or refuse to attend Mass when the annual pro-life service comes around.  So when I realized that yesterday was going to be that Sunday, I was glad that I had gone to church alone.

Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and I aren't the only Catholics who feel uncomfortable.  According to a Georgetown University study, 58 percent of us support a woman's right to a legal abortion.  41 percent believe that human life is sacred from conception to natural death.  So I suppose 1 percent of us are caught in the middle.  A tense situation?  I'd say so.

Yesterday, Respect Life homilies were delivered not just at my parish, but across the country.  A letter from a local bishop, which equated abortion with homicide, was read aloud at every Mass in Scranton, PA.  (Imagine the creaking in those pews!)  But it seems that Respect Life Sunday won't be the last we hear from the Roman Catholic clergy between now and Election Day.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, a senior American clergy member at the Vatican, has called the Democratic Party a “party of death.”  Pro-choice lay Catholics promote the Democrats' platform on social justice as a more Christ-like approach to policy.

The candidates themselves seem to be adding to the tension.  McCain's (perhaps misguided) strategy is to appeal to Catholics by emphasizing pro-life issues.  Obama's approach downplayed abortion to reach out to the quiet 58 percent who fidget in their pews.

But after Biden's gaffe on Meet the Press, the candidates are even more cautious.  Both Biden and Pelosi caught heat from U.S. bishops for what they viewed as a flawed stance on abortion.  

But for all the embarrassment and back-paddling of both politicians, they haven't actually suffered much damage at the polls.

Still, squabble between bishops and Washington, which is dominating coverage in the press, seems to be falling under the radar of Catholic voters. A recent Pew study showed that less than 10 percent of Catholics say that Church teaching informs their votes.

The Catholic vote has always been a bit of a mystery—a curious electoral creature that defies party lines.  Official Church teachings oppose abortion and gay marriage, while promoting health care reform, welfare, and an end to war. But as the Pew study suggests, Catholics themselves may revere the Church but not vote according to its teachings.  

Instead of focusing on the American Catholics who will cast ballots in November, the press is caught up in the Church's official statements from the Vatican.  In the process, one of the most politically significant voting blocs may be slipping through their fingertips.

Andrea Tabor is a Master's degree candidate in journalism at the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

By Jonathan Partridge

A slew of media outlets relayed more tales of Anglican angst this weekend, as the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh became the second diocese to break off from the Episcopal Church.

By an overwhelming majority, Pittsburgh's clergy and laity opted to realign with the theologically conservative Anglican Province of the Southern Cone in South America.

At least a dozen outlets covered the activities of the Pittsburgh diocese's vote on Saturday as well as the drama leading up to that event. That included Bishop Robert Duncan's deposition by the Episcopal Church last month and the church's 2003 ordination of openly gay bishop Gene Robinson.

Still, it will be interesting to see if media interest continues as the diocese comes under the oversight of the Southern Cone province. If coverage of the Fresno, Calif.-based Diocese of San Joaquin's split in December is any indication, readers should expect to see little follow-up.

That's a shame.

As a former member of a mission church in the Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, I have talked to parishioners there who are unhappy with the general direction of the Episcopal Church but are equally unhappy with the new diocesan leadership, which they describe as “power hungry.”

Such perspectives have not appeared in the mainstream media, which has seemingly forgotten that bishops, priests and pundits are not the only people affected by church-wide splits. The New York Times wisely jumped  on a story this week about a potential dispute over church property within the Pittsburgh diocese, but reporters also can find additional news fodder if they take time to talk to individual parishioners.

And while it is important to explain the theological differences that have led to the recent split, media outlets should be wary of how pundits characterize those variances in belief.

For instance, the New York Times stated that the debate is “driven by theologically conservative leaders who believe the church has turned away from traditional biblical teachings on issues like whether Jesus is the son of God and the only way to salvation.”

While this may be a fair characterization of the views of conservative critics within the Episcopal Church, a more thorough reporting of the facts would also note that the Episcopal Church officially acknowledges the divinity of Christ. Meanwhile, teachings on homosexuality vary among parishes. However, the church passed a resolution in 1994 that generally prohibits people from being excluded from worship and governance of the church because of sexual orientation.

It also would be helpful to get commentary from historians about Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori's statement that schism often has been “seen as a more egregious error than charges of heresy” within Anglicanism. Her statement may be true, but it certainly deserves further questioning.
Meanwhile, media sources who cover international news should continue getting perspectives from Anglicans in Africa. After all, most church-goers in the nearly 80-million-member Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church, now reside on the African continent. Robinson's election as bishop has stirred up quite a bit of controversy within the Anglican Communion, making this far more than an Episcopal Church story. The New York Times and Reuters, among other outlets, have included African voices with a wide range of views on homosexuality in past stories. Continued coverage in that vein is necessary to put the story in a global context.

Another interesting angle could be a story on what Episcopalians think of the Apostle Paul's mandate against Christians suing one another. How do they justify turning to the secular courts to resolve property issues?

Most of all, careful follow-through will be needed as the dioceses of Fort Worth in Texas and Quincy in Illinois consider realigning with the Southern Cone province next month.

The Most Rev. Gregory Venables, archbishop of the Province of the Southern Cone, said in an interview at the Anglican Communion's Lambeth Conference this summer that it is important to ask “Where do we go from here?”

Journalists should watch how Anglicans reply to that question in the coming months. Intense local and global coverage will be necessary to accurately chart the course the Anglican Church is taking.

Jonathan Partridge, former managing editor of The Patterson Irrigator in Patterson, Calif., is a graduate student in the specialized journalism program at the University of Southern California

The following text is from author Jennifer Hahn's current posting at Religion Dispatches.

“Religion must die for mankind to live.” So concludes Bill Maher in his new documentary Religulous, in which he travels the world interviewing religious zealots in an attempt to alert humanity to the apocalypse-ushering absurdities of their beliefs.

On the one hand, the film, directed by Larry Charles of Borat fame, is a super-funny and much-needed intervention for a world increasingly beholden to religious fundamentalism. The problem is that Maher purports to show that all organized religion, not just fundamentalism, is “detrimental to the progress of humanity” and he falls short.

“I get this criticism a lot,” Maher told The New York Times. “It's a pet peeve of mine, because I'm confronted with this notion that 'Oh yes, you only go after the extremists, and by doing that you make religion look silly.'” But, Maher counters, “Anyone who's religious is extremist.”

While such a black-and-white view of faith may infuriate some, I'd be happy to hear Maher out. But by the time he exhorts moderate religious people to realize that their solace comes at a “terrible price,” the film's seconds away from the credits. He's had so much fun eviscerating easy targets like an actor portraying Jesus at a holy land theme park that he fails to prove his more interesting thesis: that moderate religious people enable the intolerance and violence perpetrated by their more fundamentalist fellow believers.

It seems Maher's two primary goals for the film – to be funny and to actually convince people to abandon religion – are often at odds with each other. I have no doubt that sometime atheists such as myself will find Maher shriek-out-loud hilarious, but it is unlikely that his film is going to change the minds of any committed believers. (Actually, it's probably more likely to inspire galvanizing rage in the Palin-loving portion of the electorate just weeks before the election.) For instance, Maher somehow gets an ex-gay minister to agree to an interview and the two men actually end up having an interesting conversation. Of course, Maher can't help himself and when hugged by the “formerly” gay man asks him if he got a hard-on. I'll admit it – I laughed. But any minds Maher might have actually managed to pry open with this exchange were probably firmly slammed shut again thanks to the boner comment.

The truth is, Maher is preaching to the choir and the choir may be rolling on the floor, but their amusement will have no affect on the majority of people in this country that firmly, unapologetically, believe in God. He is so very right that the 16 percent of Americans that are not affiliated with any organized religion need to come out of the closet and take back their fair share of the political process. Hopefully he'll inspire some of his fellow travelers. But what Religulous won't do is convince believers because as any evangelist knows, pissing people off does not generally lead to conversion.

But Maher has also said the film's goal is to start a conversation and, in this regard, he seems to have succeeded. It's high time someone vocally challenged an America in which, as Maher has pointed out, once “you say the word 'faith,' the debate is over—no matter what incredibly nonsensical, destructive, ridiculous tenet comes out of your mouth.” People of faith should be held accountable for their beliefs, especially when they insert these beliefs into public life. Beliefnet.com – which Maher has parodied with his Disbeliefnet.com – wisely doesn't dismiss Religulous (actually it's crawling with ads for the film) but instead implores its readers to “prove Maher wrong” on its discussion boards by explaining “how faith, or your spiritual practices, has made you a better person or your world a better place.” If Maher can't succeed in converting extremists to agnosticism, perhaps his film can at least bring moderate religious voices more prominently into the discussion.

Interestingly, many of these more moderate voices are offering up the “spiritual, but not religious” stance as a rebuttal to Maher. As Heretic_for_Christ puts it: “Of course religion is bad. God is real to me as a spiritual presence in my life, but religion is a man-made construct based on the preposterous notion that a set of ancient writings – akin to a printout of Beliefnet postings – is the holy and infallible word of God.”

For the record, Maher says he has “no problem with spirituality.” What I think he fails to understand is that many people who belong to organized religious groups actually view themselves as spiritual rather than religious, probably because they associate religion with the same kind of bigotry and violence that Maher does. Actually 40 percent of Americans use this phrase to describe themselves, according to a 2007 Gallup poll. Meaning, perhaps, that they don't take the stories of their particular faith literally and don't just subscribe to whatever nonsense is coming from the pulpit. There's a difference between official doctrine and how the majority of people live their faith on a day-to-day basis. And Maher paves over this difference. Sure, a small proportion of Christians, Muslims, and Jews take their holy texts as literal word-for-word instructions and thus find it hard to coexist with others. But as the Onion A.V. Club's Noel Murray so wisely points out, Maher isn't “quite fearless enough to interview or lay into the multitudes of moderately devout folks who use their religion as a cultural signifier and a way to make a difference in their communities.”

I have a sense that Maher is aware of this but he knows that a film parsing out the differences between various groups of believers would not be as provocative or as funny as a sweeping condemnation of all of them. (Well, Western ones at least. There's no mention of Eastern religious traditions in the film). Obviously, a sober PBS-style treatment of the subject would not inspire the kind of widespread discussion of the role of faith in Western culture and politics that “Religuous” will. So, yeah, the film is perhaps unfair in lumping moderate religious folks with extremists (though if Maher wants to make a sequel proving the validity of this claim, I'll watch). But by doing so, he provokes the majority of Americans to think critically about what they believe and how it impacts our world. The best thing that Religulous could do is inspire more moderate religious folks to assert their claim on the word religious, wresting it free from the stranglehold of misguided extremists.

Jennifer Hahn, whose work has appeared in Ms. magazine and Los Angeles CityBeat, is currently a master's degree candidate in specialized journalism at USC.

I knew I liked “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles,” but it wasn't until I read Ginia Bellafante's New York Times piece that I understood why.

The Fox drama makes another run at the Terminator franchise that debuted in—when else?—1984. In a career-defining role, Arnold Schwarzenegger displayed an almost charming relentlessness that, according to some, served him well during recent deliberations on the California state budget.

This time around, terminators come in more diverting shapes and sizes, including the ubiquitous Garrett Dillahunt (who as Jesus played for the other side of the Manichean divide in “The Book of Daniel” ) and pixie-ish Garbage singer Shirley Manson.

Bellafante explains that “The Sarah Chronicle Connors,” which focuses on the heroic efforts of a single mom to safeguard her son (so that he can save the world from tyrannical machines) captures our current apocalyptic moment.

“In contrast to 'Heroes,' another series about pre-empting apocalypse,” Bellafante writes, “there is nothing cartoonish about 'Sarah Connor.' The sense of foreboding is relentless and the mood unbroken by moments of comedy—dark, light or middling. . . The 'Terminator' franchise originated with a messianic bent, but 'Sarah Connor' aggressively expands the theology. Like '24,' also on Fox, the series plays both to the left and the right, nodding to the humanistic notion that it is in man's power to change fate but offering a Christ figure to alter the course of history.”

That Christ figure, Sarah's son John Connor (note the initials), is surrounded by religious imagery. His father is a mysterious figure who, overcoming time, travels from the future to impregnate Sarah. Sarah herself is a militant Madonna convinced that her son is the savior of humankind. Another member of the crew, a “good” terminator sent from the future to protect them, goes bad and betrays John. But rather than disable the mechanical turncoat, as Sarah wishes, John experiences an outpouring of love (agape, we hope) that puts the machine back on track.

Perhaps Sarah Connor is for semi-secular quasi-humanists what Sarah Palin is to folks who take their theology neat (no twist): a heroic mother with an aura of chosen-ness who's hell-bent on saving humanity. Pretty women on a mission, they're ready to blow up whoever stands in their way.

Sarah P. is more attuned to divine mysteries, although Sarah C. looks better in black. They both know their way around guns and toss their dark locks to get what they want. It's not surprising that I have the same reaction when I watch either one: their struggles depress me. Sarah Connor is fighting an apparently omnipotent enemy, but I tune in on Mondays to watch her fight against the apocalypse. On the other hand, Sarah Palin's ready for the Second Coming. She's heard the Word, got the blessings and is prepared to lead you and me into the fray.

Do journalists understand the difference between art and life—and the relationship between religion and politics? If so, we need more digging on Sarah P's notions of spiritual warfare and their implications for real life decisions. Also needed are more reflective pieces on why we're turning to big bad mamas to mitigate free-floating apocalyptic sensibilities in our over-polluted, terror-crazed, bankrupt world.

Diane Winston

By Brooke-Sidney Gavins

Barack Obama's camp recently told Christianity Today that it is beginning a new faith tour called “Barack Obama: Faith, Family and Values Tour.” This time around the campaign has enlisted evangelical surrogates such as author Donald Miller and other pro-life Democrats on a swing through the battleground states. Yet despite previous faith-based tours and new “Believer for Obama” merchandise, a recent University of Akron poll revealed that Obama hasn't made any inroads among evangelical voters.

The Democratic Party realizes it needs the support of undecided voters in swing states such as Colorado, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Florida. To secure these votes, the Obama team must win over centrist evangelicals and mainline Protestants who live in those areas. But it's an uphill fight.

According to the University of Akron poll, “White evangelical Protestants favored McCain over Obama 57 to 20 percent, with 22 percent undecided. At the same point in the 2004 campaign, white evangelicals preferred Bush over Kerry 60 to 20, with 20 percent undecided.”

The numbers show that history may be repeating itself. However, the study was conducted between June and August 2008, “which was before both parties' conventions and before McCain named Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.” There may be time left for the Obama team to fine-tune its message to voters who were inspired by the display of faith at the Democratic convention (or who are dismayed by the selection of Palin, whose not-so-centrist beliefs might alienate moderates).

The Obama campaign official told Christianity Today that the candidate's last faith-based tour was more of a fact-finding mission, but his new effort will focus on “why people of faith and values support Obama.” Surrogates like pro-life Democrat Tim Roemer and Professor Doug Kmiec of Pepperdine University will address audiences at community centers and discuss to Obama's and Biden's stances on hot button evangelical issues.

Although increasing dialogue between evangelicals and Democrats is a smart strategy, the University of Akron poll suggests that the Obama team may want to spend less time talking about topics, such as abortion and gay marriage, about which they can't win over evangelicals.

Still, if the 2004 race serves as a history lesson, Obama cannot win by only securing what John Green, the political scientist behind the Akron polls, calls the “modernist evangelical vote – those with less traditional beliefs and practices.”

Rather, the Obama camp may need to find common ground with evangelicals whose positions on abortion are also connected to more traditionally Democratic social justice and environmental issues like poverty, global warming, education and peacemaking.

According to an article in Yes! Magazine, “There is a growing number of evangelicals creating an alternative to an evangelical political platform long dominated by hot-button issues such as gay marriage and abortion.” This group includes evangelical Rev. Joel Hunter, who gave the closing prayer at the 2008 Democratic National Convention and is author of the book, A New Kind of Conservative. Although these evangelicals are not giving up their socially conservative beliefs, like other Democrats, they are concerned with social justice too.

“As a movement progresses and matures,” Hunter told Yes! Magazine, “it begins to define itself by what it's for instead of what it's against. It starts to think of pro-life in terms of life outside the womb as well as inside the womb.”

A social justice message might also help the Obama camp reach out to minority evangelicals. According to a 2004 poll by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Inc. for Religion & Ethics Newsweekly and U.S. News & World Report, “While white evangelicals considered socially conservative moral values their first priority (37%), 41% of black and 34% of Hispanic respondents placed a different moral issue—the economy—first.”

Instead of simply repeating its commitment to “reducing abortions”—a strategy that is unlikely to win the hearts of evangelicals, the University of Akron poll suggests—the Obama campaign would do well to emphasize the points of commonality between the Democratic party and the leading edges of evangelical movements that are focusing on social justice and environmental concerns. Whether Obama can fine-tune his message, and how it will sound to the ears of a younger (and more diverse) generation of evangelicals, remains to be seen.

Brooke-Sidney Gavins is an USC-Annenberg Dean's Scholar and an M.A. candidate in the broadcast journalism program.

By Nicky Loomis

In last Sunday's New York Times, op/ed writer Nicholas Kristof said the accusations that Barack Obama is a Muslim aren't so much religious slander as they are an attempt to “Otherize” the Democratic candidate. 

Writing from “a sense of personal responsibility,” Kristof pointed his finger at journalists who serve  as enablers of this subtly racist strategy.

Kristof aptly points out that in trying to prove that Obama is a Muslim, “Muslim” itself becomes a negative.  “As it that in itself were wrong,” he says.

In a Pew Research Center survey released last week, 13 percent of registered voters said Obama is a Muslim, compared with 12 percent in June and 10 percent in March. What's more, the study found that only half of Americans polled know for certain that Obama is a Christian.

The religious mudslinging becomes a political tool to disguise underlying racism towards the candidate—a tactic that Kristof calls an attempt to “de-Americanize” Obama. 

Journalist Marty Kaplan described this “de-Americanization” in a column titled “But he's a Muslim!” that ran in The Jewish Journal a few weeks ago:

“To enough voters that it matters for the outcome of this election, Muslims are as other, if not more so, as blacks. A Muslim running for president of the United States may just as well be the Manchurian Candidate, with al-Qaeda, the Palestinians, the Saudis, your-Islamic-bad-guys'-name-here, playing the role of the brainwashing North Koreans nefariously plotting to plant one of their own in the White House.”

Though Kristof underscores that McCain himself hasn't raised doubts about Obama's religion, in a recent TV ad sponsored by the McCain campaign, Obama is implicated not as a Muslim but as the Antichrist, as images of parting seas are paired with a voice-over declaring, “It should be known that in 2008, the world will be blessed. They will call him 'The One.'”

Some bloggers have picked up on this idea. One blog — Is Barack Obama the Messiah? — even sells T-shirts and pins with “Messiah 2008” stamped above a photo of the candidate.

In a recent posting on Beliefnet.com, Mara Vanderslice, an evangelical Democrat who started Common Good Strategies, a consulting firm that helps Democrats reach out to Christian communities, describes the McCain ad as playing to the basest elements of human nature.  Vanderslice, who was the Director of Religious Outreach for the Kerry-Edwards campaign and the first national religious outreach liaison for a presidential candidate, scorns the McCain ad:

“…This ad implies that those who plan to support Senator Obama are looking for a new savior or replacement Messiah…How low can we go? It shows the McCain campaign is willing to make a mockery of our faith to feed people's fears.”

Vanderslice touches on the most intriguing aspect of the ad – why would the McCain camp misappropriate religious imagery for political gain? What advantage outweighs the risk of offending viewers for whom talk of a Messiah is serious business?

Kristof hits the nail on the head:

“Religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it's not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate's skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Mr. Obama is sufficiently Christian.”

When Obama appeared on ABC's “This Week,” he tried to address the rumors about his being Muslim, sarcastically mentioning what he called “My Muslim faith.”  Within hours, that segment of the interview was posted on YouTube under headings such as “Proof Obama is a Muslim.”
Journalists, Kristof says, must do more than simply enable the racist impulses behind these political narratives.

“Journalists need to do more than call the play-by-play this election cycle. We also need to blow the whistle on egregious fouls calculated to undermine the political process and magnify the ugliest prejudices that our nation has done so much to overcome.”

Whether those prejudices are religious or racial – or both – reporters need to see through the coding and stop writing stories that perpetuate the problem.

Nicky Loomis, whose work has appeared most recently in The Los Angeles Times, is currently a master's degree candidate in specialized journalism at USC.