“Where Was Her Editor?”

I was going to say something about Lisa Miller’s Newsweek cover story advocating for same-sex marriage on religious grounds. But I simply could not improve on Mollie Ziegler’s comments over at the indispensable GetReligion :

It is no exaggeration to say the piece was an embarrassment. My analysis of the belly flop is here. On a radio show yesterday, the host asked me whether the piece was more offensive to my sensibilities as a journalist or a Christian. I went with “journalist” since the piece wasn’t anywhere legitimate enough, theologically speaking, to be considered seriously. As a journalist, it violated almost every rule in the book. It failed to accurately represent the viewpoint being scrutinized. It was riddled with errors. It was driven by emotion. More than a few journalists—one at a competing weekly news magazine—wrote to me yesterday asking, “Where was her editor?”

Well, her editor was Jon Meacham, who is supposed to be some kind of expert on religion and American public life. I was going to say something about Meacham’s screed that introduced and praised the Miller piece, but again, Ziegler nails it:

Meacham’s note is an unserious response to conservative Christian views or conservative political views related to homosexuality. He assumes that Miller in any way understands Scripture when her piece was riddled with obvious errors. He compares worldwide, millennia-long support for heterosexual marriage with the post-Civil War anomaly of racist marriage laws (What I have called the Loving Corollary to Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies ).

And then . . . and then he tells anyone who disagrees with Newsweek ‘s shoddy advocacy journalism and unfair agenda-driven hackery to buzz off . . . .

What a scold. And the fact that, as a progressive, he seemingly doesn’t realize he’s a scold makes it so much worse. Has he ever spoken with a conservative? Does he know anyone who disagrees with his religious views from a more orthodox perspective? Doubling down on Miller’s hackery with this arrogant editor’s note reveals that Newsweek is willing to sacrifice everything from factual accuracy to basic civility in service to its agenda.