Last Friday I wrote a lengthy post exposing the mendacity of the mainstream media when covering issues related to religious freedom (Dumb, Uneducated, And Eager To Deceive: Media Coverage Of Religious Liberty In A Nutshell.) Part of their struggles with religious liberty coverage stem from its current collision with social issues near and dear to their hearts.
It’s simply difficult for many reporters to retain any semblance of objectivity when dealing with stories related to gay rights. Here’s a great example of just how sick and twisted this mendacity can become.
New Trail Life scouting group excludes gay kids & they do a "Sieg Heil!" style salute, too. http://t.co/c3UDn1Vfry pic.twitter.com/Vhvlr3wbyY
— Cathy Lynn Grossman (@CLGrossman) March 3, 2014
The reporter who tweeted this, Cathy Lynn Grossman, is a national correspondent for Religion News Service. She spent many years as USA Today’s religion reporter.
This tweet links to a photo and a news story about a scouting organization for those with doctrines different than those espoused by Religion News Service reporters.
Now, say what you will about the Associated Press’ decision to use this suggestive photo, or the biased article it’s matched with, but at least the caption to the piece makes their activity abundantly clear:
In this Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2014 photo, Trail Life members move their arms as they sing “Taps” in a circle during a meeting in North Richland Hills, Texas.
Is Taps some secret Nazi song? Here are the lyrics to the song the boys were singing, the crime for which a religion reporter went Full Godwin.
If one needs to lie about boys singing an old scouting song to perpetuate activist goals, perhaps one should reconsider one’s line of work. Relentlessly misrepresenting adults and their views is one thing. Going after kids is just bullying.
UPDATE ONE: Never let facts or basic human decency get in the way of activism. Here’s Grossman — who claims to be a religion reporter — being confused about whether reporters gather information with any semblance of objectivity or manipulate it to smear children:
@roddreher @AP @firstthingsmag Teaching kids to exclude gay peers is not "ugly"? What happens when they outgrow discriminatory confines?
— Cathy Lynn Grossman (@CLGrossman) March 3, 2014
UPDATE TWO: Grossman has since deleted her tweets accusing a scouting group of saluting Hitler. Here is the original picture that she referenced, complete with caption describing the activities in the photo.
In explaining why she deleted her tweets, Grossman claimed on Twitter that she “misinterpreted” the “unfortunate” photo. She did not explain how one misinterprets a photo with a caption, nor did she explain how the photo — rather than her deliberate mischaracterization of it — was “unfortunate.”
My sincere apologies to the boys of North Richland Hills, Texas Trail Life for misinterpreting an unfortunate photo of their taps ceremony.
— Cathy Lynn Grossman (@CLGrossman) March 4, 2014
UPDATE THREE: The Religion News Service account also distributed Nazi comparisons to its 24,000 followers. While it deleted some of them, this one remains:
Should BoyScout Christian alternative Trail Life have a WWII history badge? Check the salute! http://t.co/xB9GU9y8Nl pic.twitter.com/6acHb4oxuJ
— Religion NewsService (@RNS) March 3, 2014
UPDATE FOUR: RNS editor Kevin Eckstrom wrote in an email “that post was an oversight. It should have been deleted along with the others, which were taken down so as not to compound the error. This one simply slipped past us. It is now gone.”
