This Just In: Journalists Don't Know or Like Christian Conservatives

In example number eleventy gajilion of this ongoing story, a journalism insider pulls back the curtain and reveals yet again that journalists have nothing but contempt for people who hold traditional Christian values. This time it's the Washington Post, where the ombudsman publishes an email exchange between a reporter and a reader who complained about the sland of coverage. And... it goes down exactly like you'd think. Great coverage and commentary provided by GetReligion:

Pexton goes on to admit that he doesn’t even understand the arguments of traditional marriage advocates (an admission that comes, unsurprisingly, after he mischaracterizes an argument related to social norms and ignores the vast majority of what traditional marriage defenders have to say about marriage law). Before that he writes:

And because our profession lives and dies on the First Amendment — one of the libertarian cornerstones of the Constitution — most journalists have a problem with religionists telling people what they can and cannot do. We want to write words, read books, watch movies, listen to music, and have sex and babies pretty much when, where and how we choose.

Oh come on. Religionists? Religionists? Who are we, Andrew Sullivan? There is, first off, no excuse for the use of this slur (which means religious zealot) by any professional journalist. Oh, and that First Amendment? Anything in there about religious liberty?

As for whether everyone in the world has a moral code that involves limits or whether it’s just those with “religious zeal,” Pexton’s statement reveals just how blind he and his colleagues are to how changes in law have many intended and unintended consequences that affect everyone’s freedom. 

To sum up then, Pexton and the unnamed Post reporter refuse to hear the arguments of those who oppose redefining marriage, make incorrect claims as to what those arguments are, issue slurs of racism and religious zealotry against those who disagree and then, amazingly, we’re told:

That’s why many journalists have a hard time giving much voice to those opposed to gay marriage. They see people opposed to gay rights today as cousins, perhaps distant cousins, of people in the 1950s and 1960s who, citing God and the Bible, opposed black people sitting in the bus seat, or dining at the lunch counter, of their choosing.

He ends by saying that despite their feverish and idiotic Bible-thumping ignorance, perhaps the Post — when doing basic journalistic work — should treat them better.