Good stories lurk in ideology-driven magazines and web sites on the
religion beat, perhaps more so than with other fields.
For example, there’s often useful fare blended with the partisanship of
Church & State, monthly house organ of Americans United for Separation of
Church and State. This lobby and litigator closely monitors those it
assails as “far-right religious conservatives,” provides some useful
information and is always happy to brief reporters on its side of an issue.
Consider, for example, the cover story in Church & State’s current issue,
“New Congress, New Challenges,” by assistant communications director Simon
Brown. Republicans rode to victory on “fundamentalist support,” he says, so
“2015 could be a cataclysmic year for church-state separation.”
Stripped of the tendentious rhetoric and alarmism, Brown assembles some
good tips. As he observes, during the next two years the Republican-run
Congress may revive hot-button religion bills that previously died in
committee or passed the G.O.P House but not the Democratic Senate. They
would: