Web Site Mixes Satire, Religion and the Weather

[Ian David]

Since 2008, Christwire.org has emerged as the leading Internet sites for ultraconservative Christian news, commentary and weather reportage. “Hurricane Earl Projected Path, Gay East Coast of America,” Christwire opined last Monday. One headline in late August proclaimed, “Warning! Black Music Infiltrates the Minds of Future Homemaking White Women.” Last week, referring to Ken Mehlman, the former Republican Party chairman who came out of the closet last month, Christwire asked, “Why does Ken Mehlman think that choosing the homosexual lifestyle is more important to him than the Republican values he once held so dear?”

Christwire has lately reached new levels of popularity, in part thanks to an Aug. 14 column, “Is My Husband Gay?” Written by Stephenson Billings, the piece is a 15-point checklist to help wives diagnose possibly closeted husbands. “Gym membership but no interest in sports” is one warning sign. So is “Sassy, sarcastic and ironic around his friends” and “Love of pop culture.” “Is My Husband Gay?” was picked up on The Huffington Post and mentioned by Ryan Seacrest on his radio show; so far it has been viewed 8.3 million times.

Oh, by the way: Christwire is all one big joke.

Not the readership — which hit a high of 27 million page views in August — but the content, the opinions and the fake authors who write the stuff. (There is no “Stephenson Billings.”) Neither of the two founders is a conservative Christian. They are just like-minded 28-year-olds who met on the Internet, have never seen each other in person, and until this week had never given their real identities to a reporter.

More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/us/04beliefs.html?_r=1&src=mv&ref=us

[trotsky]

1. Is there an Internet axiom more true than Poe's Law? n/t