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If you can't write anything about the Democratic National Convention, don't write anything at all
New York University's religion blog, The Revealer, has a series examining what presidential campaign reporting would look like if it were covered by religion reporters. Well, it's not that the Revealer's dreams have come true, it's just that convention news seems to have squeezed religion reporting out of the rest of the newspapers today. We've talked about Boston Tuesday and Wednesday, and we'll probably hit Kerry's speech in tomorrow's posting. So ideally today we should turn our attention to other matters today.

But there are few matters to note. The Philadelphia Inquirer reports on Thomas and Babette Hankin's lawsuit against the Bristol Township School District. The couple say the state has no right to monitor the home education of their seven children. The Inquirer says it's "a test case watched by homeschoolers nationwide," but then suggests that Pennsylvania's statute, "which require parents to register their child with the local school district, submit detailed course objectives, keep a log and portfolio for each child, and have a third party evaluate the child's progress at the end of the year," is far more stringent than those elsewhere in the country. Better late than never for the Inquirer, but the case was filed back in April, and so far no trial date has been set.

Other than that, um … The Orlando Sentinel has a nice profile of Campus Crusade for Christ's Vonette Bright, one year after the death of her husband. But there's not much news in it.

Okay. So, reluctantly, let's go back to Boston. Yesterday marked the Democratic Party's first convention caucus for "people of faith. It was scheduled concurrently with the gay and lesbian caucus, which brought such luminaries as Ben Affleck and Teresa Heinz Kerry. The presidential candidate's wife told the homosexual delegates, "You're pushing the envelope, and we, as a country, have to respond with policies and cultural acceptance." (All in good time, though: The Sacramento Bee notes that you won't hear much on gay marriage from the podium, nor will you see much of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, even though he's being welcomed as a hero by delegates.)

Not too many big names or calls for acceptance at the people of faith caucus, though. The Boston Globe suggests that the key speaker was Ron Sparks, Massachusetts's commissioner of agriculture and industries. "Let me say this one thing," Sparks said. "It really aggravates me every time one of those Republicans tell me that I don't know anything about Jesus Christ."

Republicans are saying that he doesn't know anything about Jesus Christ? Man, they should really stop that. Who are these Republicans? That's really inappropriate. Can we have their names and the times in which they told Mr. Sparks that he doesn't know Jesus? Because I'd think that both Democrats and Republicans would agree that such comments are inappropriate.

But that doesn't mean that we can't talk about—and even debate lively about—what Jesus really said. Take a look at such a debate between Manchurian Candidate actors Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep on Dateline NBC:

Katie Couric: "I know you were there. And in fact, I read your quote. You said—you talked about President Bush and his invocation of religion and you said—"

Streep: "No, of Jesus."

Couric: "Of Jesus, sorry. 'Through the shock and awe, I wondered which of the megaton bombs Jesus, our president's personal savior, would have personally dropped on the sleeping families in Baghdad.'"

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July (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48