Motherhood, Morality, and, Ultimately, Madness: My Thoughts on the Casey Anthony Case

by Charity Carney

Will it never end?! Not the Casey Anthony media craze. There’s no hope there. But the complete lack of awareness on the part of the American public of their obsession with motherhood, proper familial relations, and these moral boundaries that so many claim exist but cannot agree on what they are and what they mean. I have to admit, I’ve been watching my fair share of Nancy Grace's commentary lately—the subtle movements in Anthony’s face, the ridiculous analysis of her hairdo (to ponytail or not to ponytail?)—and I keep watching because I have become entranced with the concepts of proper American motherhood AND fatherhood situated so squarely in our television sets. What this case has elicited is more than talk of mob rule and justice for a murdered child. It has revealed how the American mainstream views modern motherhood and family life and how their commitment to those ideals often trumps the mandates of the justice system and Constitution.

Casey Anthony is pretty. She is young. She is white. And all of these are reasons that she has captured the country’s attention for so long. But alongside these factors runs a strain of judgment based on maternal standards that have made themselves extremely clear over the past few months. Dubbed “Tot Mom” by Nancy Grace, Anthony has been criticized for not “acting” like a mother should (a penalty that many have said warrants death in and of itself), for being a liar (the temptress that she is, fooling policemen and her parents alike), and for even living with her parents after the birth of her child (unsure of who the father was and unable to take care of her daughter herself as a 22-year-old single mother). Despite the gruesome facts surrounding the court case, there is something to be learned about American morality when it comes to gendered subjects: even within a “modern” society where many women defy maternal stereotypes, the court of public opinion still retains a very conservative understanding of what moral parents do.

Pitted against Casey Anthony’s “immoral” behavior are the accusations against and defenses of her father, George Anthony, of child abuse and molestation. When Casey’s defense attorney’s brought this accusation to light and used it as a central part of the explanation of “Tot Mom”’s (ugh, it hurts to write it) actions, the media had a field day. The majority of newscasters, analysts, lawyers, and interviewed citizens rejected the idea that any father could do that to his daughter or cover up the death of his granddaughter. Not casting personal blame on any person, I simply observe that our patriarchal system is still firmly in place, you’ll be happy to know. In case anyone was worried, it’s doing just fine. The stark contrast of the moral questions cast upon Casey Anthony’s motherhood and George Anthony’s fatherhood is an indicator of the gendered status of ethical parenting.

Not that we did not realize this already, but I have not seen in recent times a more clear example of gendered judgment of moral/immoral behavior. I do think that the fact that the O.J. Simpson verdict has been held up as a comparison to the Anthony case only encourages this idea but the difference is that the Simpson trial was held up as a race-based incident and the Anthony trial is stuck in American psyches when it comes to any kind of higher gender analysis.

Random Notes from the Religion Merry-Go-Round

Paul Harvey

The merry-go-round, or the tilt-a-whirl, of American religion keeps going. Just a little taste of it, from today's Times:

An entrepreneur follows in the model of JDate, the Jewish speed dating service, with his version of Muslim Speed-Dating:

At intermission, about half of the participants went to a back room to offer their prayers. A 29-year-old woman named Maria, who works as an art director for a major television channel, went to her parents to complain that some of her “dates” did not know what an art director was. “Some of the men are very removed from this culture, even though they live here,” she said. “I need a drink,” said one exhausted bachelor. He did not mean Kool-Aid.

Every college town (in this one it's Gainesville) is heaven for believers in The Gospel of Anarchy:

Taylor’s noble goal in “The Gospel of Anarchy” is to remind those of us long past our own difficult youths of the grace and beauty to be found even in a “bunch of drunkpunks in the armpit of Florida.

In House of Prayer No. 2, the southern writer Mark Richard goes all Apostle on us:

But maybe darkness is what Richard is after, the necessary prologue to the spiritual awakening that occupies the end of his book. Again, he is laconic about the epiphany; we learn simply that while he is walking alone in the Tennessee woods, he gets “the call to ministry.” After a few thwarted attempts to enroll in a seminary, he stumbles on an unexpected outlet for “this thing that has been placed on” his

heart: his Cajun, lapsed-Catholic mother has joined a black Pentecostal church in his hometown, and they need a new building. Richard finds himself deeply involved in making this a reality, holding regular consultations with the pastor, buying bricks and shingles and tools, ordering food for the convicts doing the construction. His story of how the House of Prayer No. 2 gets built — despite financial obstacles and legal setbacks, and with the help of multiple small miracles along the way — becomes his means of testifying, and it’s a powerful one. When the church is close to completion and the pastor’s elderly mother “lays her hand on your shoulder, and you, at last, are slain in the spirit,” I felt a shiver pass through my body, and suddenly the memoir’s reticence, its desultory movement, its use of second person, revealed their purpose to me. To understand the mystery of faith, you cannot be told it; you must experience it yourself.

And finally, there's a girl in New York City who calls herself a human trampoline, and of course there's a church specializing in the BOD4GOD:

New York may lag behind the rest of the country in the language of evangelical self-help, but when it comes to fitness obsession, surely few cities can touch us. Work out more rigorously, work out more gently; be proud of your body, be ashamed of your body. Whatever the message, New Yorkers have peddled it, consumed it, metabolized it and excreted it a thousand times over.

It’s surprising, then, that so few have thought to merge the discourse of God and the discourse of bod. Linking the two has a number of strategic advantages over the standard “look better in a bikini” sales pitch — most notably the chance for followers to outsource their motivation to a higher power.

It’s also an opportunity for the church to prove its value in something concrete — ounces and pounds — rather than the more intangible calculus of spiritual progress.

Ya'll be careful out there.

Research on Religion

by Matt Sutton

Normally I would not recommend anything associated with the University of Washington. However, they have an excellent political scientist who is moonlighting in the virtual world at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. Anthony Gill has begun a wonderful new podcast series entitled Research on Religion, which features in-depth discussions about religion with both practitioners and academics. Past episodes include Philip Jenkins and the ubiquitous Thomas Kidd, and this month Tony interviewed me about my work on Aimee Semple McPherson. Go Cougs!

God in America and Voices in the Classroom

Emily Clark

Like most in our discipline, I watched the God in America series on PBS. There are many elements of the series that have been discussed here and on other blogs, such as events, figures, or themes left out of the series, overly represented in the series, or given an unexpected portrayal. While listening to the commentators and following the story they mapped, I thought about American religious history narratives and how particular events can make all the difference to the story.

As a Ph.D. student at Florida State University, I get the opportunity to teach a section of the Religion in US History survey course. Each time I have taught it or assisted a professor, the narrative is different. Given our varied research interests, what we know best and what we most enjoy exploring seeps into our courses. I most enjoy teaching when pushing my students to think about the role race has played in our nation’s history and how its influence in American religion has never been neutral. And I know this leaves less time for other topics, but like all teachers, I try to negotiate it best I can. For a survey course, I find the most frustrating planning part to be: what to cut and who to leave out. Course organization varies as we decide whether to cover the history chronologically or thematically. For example, God in America chose chronologically and devoted one-third of the airtime for the latter half of the twentieth century to the present. Over six hours or fifteen short weeks, preparation decisions whittle down the story to fit the time allotted, and all the deities in the world know I wish for more time.

At the 2008 National American Academy of Religion meeting in Chicago, the Q&A during a panel on violence in American religious history brought survey course organization into the discussion. Not entirely surprising, it was a graduate student working on teaching her own undergraduate course who raised it. One of the audience members who offered guidance was Thomas Tweed, whose 1997 edited volume Retelling U.S. Religious History called the academy’s attention to the way we narrate our field. Recognizing our own voices in our work and their impact on our (hi)stories force a scholastic self-reflexivity that is also applicable to our teaching style and our relationship as a field with the public. God in America told a particular story that encourages me to reflect upon what I impart onto the undergraduates I teach.

The Devil is in the Details: Hulsether on Robertson

Kelly Baker

In the wake of Pat Robertson's comments on Haiti, Mark Hulsether explores the top five ways that Robertson is dangerous, which often are overshadowed by Robertson's bombastic rhetoric. Over at Religion Dispatches, Hulsether explores the prevalence of Robertson's ignorant comments and notes that the focus on outrageousness of Robertson's claims often obscures his commonality with "mainline" conservatives. The media frenzy that surrounds Robertson also means that the more pressing dangers of the minister's career go unmentioned or ignored. (For a clip of Robertson's comments, check Paul's post here.)

Here's a preview:

Is this worth acknowledging? Comments by Robertson that are racist, sexist, arrogant, complacent, misleading, and/or embarrassing are like a bus: if you miss one today, there will be another tomorrow. Those who stir the pot by writing “can you believe he said that!” do not always seem to grasp that Robertson makes such comments continually. The question is when and why a larger public tunes in and makes an issue of it—and who benefits if they do.

Often it is Robertson who benefits, and a ritual of liberals mocking him actually strengthens his subculture. Susan Harding’s Book of Jerry Falwell: Fundamentalist Language and Politics (Princeton U. Press, 2001) shows how leaders of the New Christian Right (NCR) purposefully hone a rhetoric that creates “gaps” of credibility for listeners. Such gaps continually challenge people who are tempted by NCR rhetoric to reaffirm loyalty to their leaders—and by extension to burn bridges that could change them from believers to skeptical outsiders. The more outrageous the gaps, the more that reaffirming loyalty in the face of them allows conservatives to maintain their self-image as misunderstood and persecuted. Thus they can discount Robertson’s flaws within frames like “the sincere leader with feet of clay” (who, like King David, models repentance and rehabilitation) or the “truth-teller quoted out of context” (who, like Christ, will triumph in the end.)

Meanwhile, beyond an NCR subculture, sensational images of Robertson as a fringe figure—an extreme loose cannon—underplay continuities between him and mainstream conservatives, making allies with roughly similar ideas seem like lesser evils. (To see Mark's top five, click here.)

Harry the Devil

by Matt Sutton

I have never liked Harry Potter. My wife discovered the Potter books just before we left for our honeymoon in Maui. Much to my dismay, she spent most of the week in bed with the wizard of Hogwarts, when there were many, many other things she could and should have been doing besides reading.

So, I was glad to learn in the L.A. Times today that according to ex-Bush official Matthew Latimer the White House chose not to give Potter author J. K. Rowling a U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Bushies apparently felt that since the Potter books “encouraged” teen witchcraft, they should not get the blessing of the White House. Amen and amen.

American Idiot and Glenn Beck

Paul Harvey

In true evangelical fashion, I beg your forgiveness after the last couple of weeks of absentee blogmeistering. Suffice to say, sometimes life happens.

Hope to be back up and running soon and get our blog back on at least a near-daily schedule. In the meantime, In the meantime, here's a pairing too ironically juxtaposed to resist.

First, the musical group Green Day's recording a few years ago, "American Idiot," is being adapted for the stage. I saw Green Day back in the day -- I mean, back in the day, in the early 90s at Gilman Street in Berkeley, on a blind date with somebody from Japan who was in the U.S. to write articles for a Japanese biker-enthusiast magazine. (She couldn't really speak English, which saved me the trouble of all that "usual gettin' to know you chit chat," as Uma Thurman put it in Pulp Fiction). Weird night, unforgettably entertaining band, which I've followed off-and-on ever since.

The album American Idiot follows (in punk rock opera style, sort of an updated Tommy), the character Jimmy, aka Jesus of Suburbia, from his pointless life living off soda pop and Ritalin and hanging out at convenience stores, through his move to the city, excitement at its possibilities, and eventual disillusionment on the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams." Just a bit from this piece:

For now the creative team is tight lipped about how, exactly, it will translate the libretto of “American Idiot” into a narrative. As Mr. Armstrong admitted, “It’s not the most linear story in the world.”

But Mr. Mayer said, “If you read it a certain way, you can pull out a multiplicity of voices.” He hinted that a triumvirate of characters referred to elliptically in the album’s lyrics, with names like Jesus of Suburbia, St. Jimmy and Whatshername, would likely emerge as the central characters.

The show will premiere at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, where I saw my favorite ever production of Waiting for Godot. This may call for a special trip back to the Bay Area just to see.

Speaking of (far less interesting) American idiots, Glenn Beck is shooting up the pop charts at Fox News, with a dystopian fervor that would make Father Coughlin blush. I had a student recently recommend him, in response to an offhand comment that Sean Hannity was too interminably dull and machine-gun-like in his delivery to tolerate for more than a minute or two. The same cannot be said for Beck, and perhaps he's the latest contender for the Father Couglin Media Chair for Unctuous Paranoia:

While Mr. O’Reilly, the 8 p.m. host, paints himself as the outsider and Mr. Hannity, at 9, is more consistently ideological, Mr. Beck presents himself as a revivalist in a troubled land. He preaches against politicians, hosts regular segments titled “Constitution Under Attack” and “Economic Apocalypse,” and occasionally breaks into tears. . . . Tapping into fear about the future, Mr. Beck also lingers over doomsday situations; in a series called “The War Room” last month he talked to experts about the possibility of global financial panic and widespread outbreaks of violence. He challenged viewers to “think the unthinkable” so that they would be prepared in case of emergency.

He says that America is “on the road to socialism” and that “God and religion are under attack in the U.S.” He recently wondered aloud whether FEMA was setting up concentration camps, calling it a rumor that he was unable to debunk.

To the suggestion that he sounds like a preacher, Beck responded:

When it was suggested in an interview that he sometimes sounds like a preacher, he responded, “No. You’ve never met a more flawed guy than me.” He added later: “I say on the air all time, ‘if you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot.’ ”

I'm just saying. Paranoia strikes deep in the heartland.

Addendum: Christopher from Juvenile Instructor adds the following helpful context in the comments section:

An adult convert to Mormonism, Beck seems to be heavily influenced by the libertarian strand of Mormon political thought popularized by now-deceased Mormon apostle and church president (and former secretary of agriculture) Ezra Taft Benson and the now-deceased conservative commentator Cleon Skousen back in the mid twentieth century. Topics like "the constitution under attack" were favorites of both men, and their anti-communist rhetoric sometimes made its way into official church publications and over the pulpit in worldwide broadcasts to the church membership.Beck's own popularity (at least within conservative Mormon circles, where's he quite popular) seems to be in part a result of his playing upon Mormon millenarian thought/fears--tying world events to apocalyptic scenarios and signs of the times--and in part the related approach of constructing U.S. history as a story of a Christian nation slowly disintegrating under the constant threats of secularism and socialism.That he's immensely popular in Mormon circles in the U.S., where most Mormons are quite conservative, is not too surprising. That he's found such a cult following among the larger conservative crowd is much more so. For all of the attention Romney's religion received in the Republican primaries, Beck has managed to largely avoid conflict with the sometimes antagonistic evangelical crowd, and many of them seem to quite like him. There was a recent episode that caused a bit of a stir in which Focus on the Family pulled an article authored by Beck from its website, but that seems to be about it). And its not that Beck isn't open about his faith. His conversion story is a best seller at Mormon bookstores, and he's spoken about his church on various occasions on his show.

"Left" Out: Faith and Politics

by Phillip Luke Sinitiere



In July 2007 Nancy Gibbs and Michael Duffy famously wrote about the Democratic Party and religion, and religion scholars in recent years have started to tell us about the history of the religious left.

So, to use the title of the Gibbs and Duffy article, have Democrats "got religion"? And who are the "party faithful"? Here are some answers.

The award-winning radio program Speaking of Faith aired a show yesterday on the "faith history" of the political left. It is the first in a series on religion and the major political parties during election season. The SOF website states:

This program is the first of a two-part conversation on politics and religion below the surface of the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. The religious right has gotten a fair amount of coverage in recent years, while the political left has rarely been represented with a religious sensibility.


This show is a good conversation piece (pardon the pun) for a number of recent books that examine religion and the Democratic Party and/or political progressives, including Amy Sullivan's book The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats are Closing the God Gap (interviewed on the show), E.J. Dionne's , Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right, and David Gushee's The Future of Faith in American Politics: The Public Witness of the Evangelical Center, among others.

(Paul Harvey also posted on some of these books early this year).