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The New York Times had a big story over the weekend about young Evangelicals in St. Louis not being pre-programmed robots for the Republican party. I have no idea what placement it had in the paper, but it was the 10th most e-mailed story yesterday online (I can imagine readers of the Times shock and dismay that some Midwestern Christians may be *gasp* Democrats).

It’s a long line of stories that seem to be the reversal of the long line of stories about the power of the Religious Right of the last decade. Now that the Democrats are ascendant, the media has to come up with a meme that will fit with their worldview.

Ms. Banerjee, who appears to be the religious correspondent from the Times given her other stories, does an okay job but why do we need these stories? Is it really that surprising that someone can be Christian, live in the Midwest, and be a Democrat? I realize we’re not as smrt as those that happen to live near an ocean (must be the salty air or something) but we can think for ourselves. It should be no more surprising than finding someone that is Jewish, lives in New York, and is a Republican. Where are the stories on that? I mean if we are going to play stereotypes they can go both ways.

I would prefer the story have focused on some of the quotes rather than the fact that they happen to not be Republican. I agree with a lot of what was said by the Baptists in the article (you won’t find me saying that a lot) that we need to be out in the world rather than retreating from it as a lot of the older generation would prefer. They mention that any political agenda should be about more than abortion and gay marriage, but why not expound on that?

I’m not a huge fan of media bias (and it cracks me up to no end that Hillary’s supporters are claiming that the reason she lost is because of liberal bias) so I’m going to blame the tone of the story more on the editors lack of knowledge than an overall bias. Just to clear the air, yes, there are people in the flyover that aren’t GOP-programmed killing machines.

As the Presidential race heats up, we’ll see more articles from places that NYT reporters hoped that they would never be sent (”Send me to Baghdad, just not St. Louis!”). I hope that they all don’t take the condescending tone of this piece, but I’m not going to hold my breath.