News off on religion, civil unions reports

Recent news stories concerning religion were, as they often are, either reported inaccurately or incompletely.

The report headlined "Americans switch faiths early and often" was simply inaccurate. The Pew Forum's report actually detailed "changes in religious affiliation (not faith) in the U.S." Those persons, whose life orienting decisions were misdescribed with the language "drifting, swapping, or switching," were actually only changing their affiliations with religious congregations, not their faith.

There are five major religious "faiths" in the world and our country: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. Perhaps there is a sixth, "secularism," better understood as an irreligious lack of faith. Only those who now claimed no religious affiliation may actually have changed their faith to secularism, but even this is not necessarily true, as the report itself says.

Surveys as important as those of the Pew Forum deserve better reporting if we are to understand them. The article on "Same-sex weddings from the heartland" dealt with a far more contentious issue. It is significantly true that an important issue in same-sex civil unions for justice-oriented believers is "equal rights;" but for them and all other faithful, weddings and marriage have important biblical and traditional dimensions in addition to justice. Christians, who may have little problem accepting the language of marriage for same-sex believers, nevertheless recognize that churches should and do define marriage theologically and govern weddings accordingly.

Though we do not yet all agree, at the very least, we can and must learn to differentiate between civil marriages and religious marriages.That Iowa is the first state in the "heartland" to legalize same-sex marriages is not so surprising to those who have had opportunity to learn something of Iowa's superior educational systems. It is not that good education necessarily makes a population "liberal," but it does enable it to understand and accept legal analyses of constitutional law.

They have learned, as we all must, that in a country whose constitution separates church and state, we cannot expect our courts to define civil marriage religiously.

James E. Will

Elk Grove Village