Sex, Lies, and Media Takes

GetReligion.org is one of my favorite websites. That's because I learn more about how to read the news and what to watch for in the news than I ever have in my life. It also keeps the media honest. While I'm certain that the editors of GR have their biases, they do an admirable job of trying to look outside of those biases. Still, their sympathies allow them to question some of the prevailing narratives of the modern press. One narrative is, of course, that if it weren't for the Catholic Church, one is inclined to think there would be no problems with sexual abuse in the world. In this excellent post, Mollie Ziegler asks the obvious question: since it appears that sexual abuse is almost pandemic in our world, why does the overwhelming amount of media attention go only to the abuse in the Catholic Church? Read the post for her insight.

For me, I think it is because of what I call one of the Great Myths of our time. That myth is that a society with repressive attitudes toward sex is where the violence is, and once we dispense with such silly notions and embrace our innate sexuality, all of those old problems with sex, abuse, and repressed emotions will finally pass away. We'll see about that later. For now, the GetReligion post is worth the read, while wondering why all of the attention is only on the Catholic Church; what role lawyers and agendas have played in the coverage; and how we can take righteous condemnation seriously from folks like John Landis who have made their contempt and loathing of the Church because of the scandal well known, but have gone public in their support for Roman Polanski, who admitted to, well, the same thing the priests have been accused of doing. Makes you wonder. Don't think I don't.