By Nathan Tabor
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
The time-tested practice of adoption too often gets a bad rap in the mainstream media. We hear horror stories of long-lost biological relatives fighting expensive legal battles to remove children from a happy adoptive home. Research also indicates, all too often, pregnant women facing unexpected pregnancies see adoption as a bad choice, viewing it as another name for abandonment. As a result, it stands to reason that a number of babies who could find life and love in an adoptive home are being unnecessarily aborted. Adoption is unfairly seen as an evil rather than as a good, and the news media unfortunately play a significant role in this disinformation campaign.
So, at first, I was pleasantly surprised at the positive reports on celebrity adoptions being reported in the news media. If a mega movie star such as Angelina Jolie could help put a positive spin on international adoption, more power to her. I thought even Madonna, who seemed to defy traditional family values, could get a pass for her efforts to give a child from a poor nation a good home.
Yet, a report in the Daily Mail newspaper makes me wonder about the ulterior motives of some of these celebrity adoptions. The report says Madonna is spending mega-bucks on orphanages in Malawi--a laudable action, until you read the fine print. Because it seems that Madonna's primary aim is actually to convert the kids to her adoptive religious faith, Kabbalah.
According to the Daily Mail, nearly half the population of Malawi is under the age of 14 and many of those children are orphans. As a result, it stands to reason that they may be searching for security--a search that might be taken advantage of by those who are pushing a certain form of ideology.
Again, it's marvelous that the Material Girl has the wherewithal to provide food, medical supplies, and books to the orphans of Malawi. And if she chooses to bring some of these children into her own home, so be it.
But, make no mistake, Madonna is an evangelist--and she should be treated as such. She is planning to tutor as many as 7,000 orphans in Malawi in Kabbalah principles, according to the Daily Mail report.
Here's where traditional journalism's double standard comes in: Madonna, whose Kabbalah beliefs are considered trendy, is seen as a humanitarian for her work with orphanages. I expect headlines reading, "Santa Madonna" any day now. She's even been called a kind of celebrity Mother Theresa.
In sharp contrast, if a star who was an avowed Christian began a similar outreach campaign to Malawi's orphans, she would be labeled a religious zealot. Anti-Christian bigotry in the media is not only tolerated--it's often celebrated, especially by what can euphemistically be described as the "celebrity left."
One noted practitioner of Kabbalah was quoted as saying that the majority of mentally ill people are not, in fact, mentally ill, but possessed by evil spirits and that "unseen extraterrestrial forces affect terrestrial affairs."
I rest my case.
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