My follow-up post gushed all over Gjelten's piece on the religious freedom debate:

So why do a third post? Because of the excellent discussion generated by a reader's question about Gjelten's story.

The question came from Anton Karidian:

I replied:

And GetReligion editor Terry Mattingly chimed in:

Finally, Gjelten took the time to respond:

Obviously, the conservative vs. liberal terminology did not stand out to me when I read the story originally. Perhaps I am just accustomed to seeing the sides characterized that way. As a reminder, this was the opening on Gjelten's piece:

As I read it,Karidian's criticism is that a label ("conservatives") is applied to one side of the debate but not the other. Gjelten, meanwhile, defends his description of religious conservatives but fails to explain, unless I'm missing it,why he doesn't label LGBT advocates as "liberals."

What might be a possible solution, if one sees a problem? One might be to change "conservatives" to "people of faith" in that second paragraph. Elsewhere in the story, perhaps a more specific identifier such as "evangelicals" might be applied to those pushing religious freedom legislation. Of course, the term "evangelicals" brings its own set of complexities as far as defining exactly who falls under that umbrella.

What do you think, dear reader? Was the original language fair and accurate? Do you see a need for any tweaking in how such labels are applied? Might one's response be tied, to some degree, on whether that person sees "conservatives" or "liberals" or both as dirty words?

By all means, please join the conversation by commenting below or tweeting us at @GetReligion.

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See the original post:

Dirty words? Conservatives, liberals and accurate descriptions when reporting on religious freedom - GetReligion (blog)