The New Yorker Goes To C Street … Without a Map
If you don’t follow Jim Burroway and the work of the folks at Box Turtle Bulletin on Uganda’s anti-gay activity — most notably the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill — you’re missing out on one of the important stories about international inequality faced by LGBT people.
If you don’t follow Jeff Sharlet‘s work on the Family (or the Fellowship, or the folks behind the C Street house), you’re missing out on great journalism about the extraordinary influence of one religious organization in American public life.
Apparently, The New Yorker‘s Peter Boyer follows neither, as judging by his almost glowing portrait of the organization.
Burroway writes today:
We noted previously that Jeff Sharlet’s upcoming book C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy, will explore, among many things, the specific connections between the secretive American evangelical movement known as the Fellowship or “The Family” and the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill that was introduced into Uganda’s Parliament last year. A key chapter of that book has already been published in the September issue of Harper’s, and another modified excerpt was posted online at The Advocate. Now it appears that the Family has decided to react, and they are in full PR mode with the help of Peter Boy[er] at The New Yorker.
Judging by the broad, unsubstantiated brush strokes that Boyer takes, Burroway’s use of the word “help” does not appear to be that far off. At one point, he writes:
One view of the Fellowship, with some popularity on the secular left, is of a sort of theocratic Blackwater, advancing a conservative agenda in the councils of power throughout the world. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a friend of the Fellowship, might dispute that view—if she spoke about the group, which she does not.
So, the “no comment” becomes a possible (though not certain) denial. Interesting decision. Read Boyer’s full “Fact” piece for more.
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