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I recently discussed an incident where a Mormon couple accidentally left their child to die in a hot car for 17 hours.

Did you notice that I mentioned their religion?

Why do writers of such stories feel the need to attach a person’s religion to a tragedy in order to somehow make it seem more poignant? We hear it all the time.

“So-and-so was an active member of his church before he was gunned down.” Awww, he must have been a good guy then, right?

Why does this happen? Why are people who attend church automatically hailed as the good guys?

Does being religious make a person’s death – or their life – more meaningful? And does it have to be a Christian here in America in order to get maximum impact? How would the response be if it were a Muslim couple that left their child in a car? Oh that’s a little better because those Muslims are so weird anyway, right? Or what about an atheist couple? That’s OK too because they have no morals.

I’m every bit the father Ward Cleaver was. Perhaps even better because I had no June Cleaver by my side to assist me. My kids are my life and I teach them what’s right and wrong. They’re good kids, and I’m all they’ve had for most of their lives. I spend quality time with them, I talk to them, and I’m raising them to be good, honest, respectful, and productive members of society.

And I’m an atheist. I have always told them that it is their choice to believe or not to believe in God. In no way do I ever try to persuade them to believe anything. How many religious parents do that?

If I were gunned down, the media story wouldn’t read, “An atheist father was murdered.” If they did say that, it would somehow present my death as less of a loss than a “Christian father” being murdered.

This is offensive on a level of epic proportions.

Sure, many churches are filled with good, honest people. But so is every other segment of society. And as with every segment of society, churches are also filled with phonies, wife beaters, pedophiles, and murderers.

Not convinced? Let’s take religion out of it.

Let’s say there’s a serial killer in the news and he’s killed 6 people in the last 6 days, right around your neighborhood. You’d be scared as hell. Then you find out those 6 people were all prostitutes. Not only would you breathe a sigh of relief (unless you were a prostitute), but you’d also somehow feel relieved that it was “only” hookers being killed.

When you hear that a prostitute is killed, more than likely you don’t feel as bad as if you hear a “Christian mother” is killed. Prostitutes sometimes have children, too. And yes, some prostitutes are even Christian mothers as well. And of course it’s not a safe or wise career, but these are humans with feelings as real as the rest of us.

Race is also a factor. Perhaps you’ve heard of Missing White Woman Syndrome, an obvious media bias toward sensationalizing missing white females who are cute, and virtually ignoring similar cases of missing non-white females.

If you are missing and you’re Elizabeth Smart, you have everything going for you: white, religious, wealthy, cute, and female.

If you’re a non-Christian non-white male and you’re missing, good luck ever getting any interest.

There’s a stereotype of those who practice Western religions as being holy, righteous, and good. Living in a religious society, it’s not surprising that these stereotypes are inserted at every opportunity by the media.

But when you get people who do nutty things in the name of religion (Jim Jones, Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate), or hide behind the veil of it (Dennis Rader, the BTK killer), the media brushes over the fact that these are not isolated anomalies.

How is it that religion, and especially Christianity in America, can have its cake and eat it too? They present themselves as persecuted victims, yet they are the ones holding all the cards. It’s impossible to hold a political office without belonging to a major religion. Atheists and those belonging to minor or fringe religions are the truly persecuted and ignored.

Religion doesn’t affect the value of a human life and should not be reported as part of a news story unless it’s directly relevant to the case.

In a country where people won’t even protest gasoline well over $4 a gallon and rising daily, it’s hard to imagine anyone ever protesting something as “trivial” as media manipulation of religion.