Christwire.org Takes "Do Unto Others..." To Its Hilarious Extreme

If you've ever visited the outwardly homophobic and racist  Christwire.org, it's likely that within one minute of skimming the home page you asked yourself, "Is this site real?" But — and here's where it gets interesting —if you then hung around to read a few of the articles, you might not have been able to answer your own question with certainty, because when it comes to today's Christian conservative fight for moral righteousness, truth is almost always stranger than fiction.

The debate over the "truthiness" of this site has been going on for quite some time. Some readers, like me, believe that it's an offshoot of TheOnion.com, one of the finest (if not the finest) parody sites on the Web. Others are convinced that it's absolutely what it claims to be: A site promoting "Conservative Values for an Unsaved World." Those readers are so convinced, that they link to Christwire stories to support their arguments both for and against the Christian conservative movement. In other words, it's not only the fools that are fooled.

To get an idea of what's being said, read the comments on some of the articles on Christwire, or take a look at this Snopes.com message board conversation about a March 22 Christwire article called "Portia Di Rossi Apologizes For Being Gay Lesbian With Ellen Degeneres." 

The confusion over Christwire articles has a lot to do with the lack of a disclaimer. Nowhere on the pages of Christwire will you find words that come close to revealing that it's a parody site. The only clues provided as to its actual intent is the content — articles beneath headlines such as "Gay Homo Agenda Makes New Penis Toy For Children"  and "Are Your Children Dirty Little Easter Commies?"

But the main reason why it's hard for some to believe that this site is a joke is because alongside the unbelievable stories, like the ones linked to above, are reports spun from actual headlines.

For example, Christwire's '"Amazon Stands Up To The Gay Agenda," from last April, fed off of legitimate reports of Amazon.com's internal cataloging glitch that accidentally removed more than 57,000 books, mainly those focusing on gay themes, from its sales rankings and main search page. But, instead of reporting the truth, here's what Christwire published:

Amazon is removing sales rank numbers from Homo Agenda based books because they don’t want queer material showing up in searches and best seller lists. BRAVO!

One of the main books they are removing from sales ranking is the sin marinated book by Ellen DeGeneres. This book does nothing but promote lesbian love and gay “rights”. Good thing Amazon agrees with us and knows that gays don’t have any rights besides burning in the fires of hell.

I’m so happy to see Amazon standing up and saying no to hardcore porn books written by these queer demons to promote their sinful lifestyle onto our young children.

Amazon knows that if they are forced to post gay books, they will soon have to promote books like “How to Molest a Child” or “How to sin against God, by playing with another mans tinkle twattle.”

We applaud you Amazon. Keep up the great work and thanks for helping us putting a stop to these queers.

Although that report can be filed under ridiculous, it can't necessarily be filed under 'parody,'  because if you're aware of what some Christian conservatives have said about gay literature in the past, it's not at all far-fetched.

For example, take a look at this report posted on the non-satirical BrotherhoodNews.com (formerly GospelNews) last February about author Sheila Butt, a real woman with a real bad last name, who wrote a real book about homosexuality in response to "children’s books promoting [the homosexual] agenda, such as "Jennifer Has Two Daddies" (1983), "Daddy’s Roommate" (1991) ... and "Heather Has Two Mommies" (2000)." According to BrotherhoodNews.com, Butt's book "promote[s] God’s love for all people, while showing, in a loving way, that homosexuality is wrong." 

What's the title of Butt's book?  It is, unbelievably, this: "Does God Love Michael’s Two Daddies?" 

And therein lies the basis and beauty of Christwire — it's almost too real to be fake.

Isn't it ... almost, I mean?

Comments

[Aspasia]

They've outpaced the Christian satire site Landover Baptist Church. Have you seen that one? Absolutely hilarious!

[Swatmo]

I think it might be something beyond satire, but still not real. I think it is sabotage. Someone hates the right-wing mind-set and has decided to try and turn more people against it by masquerading as a right-wing website that goes one or two clicks farther into weirdo land than the Glenn Becks and Sean Hannities of this world. But it is a world that is consistent with the one that Beck and Hannity inhabit. It's plausibility is what will scare people away from the right. That is the goal of this site, I think. And as one who finds much to be legitimately scared about in the right-wing-nut world, I think its brilliant.

[Panquake]

I think the site is a mixture of satire and non-satire. Is that possible?

Details which make me think the site is satire:
1. I've read a great deal of real Christian writing in my life; it's not tongue-in-cheek stuff. Yet Christwire articles such as "Fag Hag: How a Girl’s Misguided Friendship Choices Can Lead to a Lifetime of Loneliness” and "Advice For Women: How To Ask Your Boss for a Raise," are written with such campy prose that they are begging for laughter.
2. The accompanying photographs are deliberately chosen to illicit laughter. True Christian hate-writing uses fearmonging, not humor.
3. Lack of scripture verses in the vast majority of articles. The hallmark of Christian writing is a big dose of Teh Bible to support everything the writer says. 99% of the Christwire articles don't contain any scripture at all.
4. Ad placement on the Christwire site: ads for "Dirty Shirty" and crass/pro-gay websites. A Christian website would never allow such ads.
5. The site directly links to HuffPo, Daily Kos, Crooks & Liars, etc. on every page. The links are under the heading "Axis of Evil," but nonetheless, a truly Christian site would never publish those links for readers.
6. Stephenson Billings, the author of "Is My Husband Gay?" is very clearly gay himself. Check out his Facebook page.

Details which suggest the site is NOT satire:
1. The vehemence and anger stirred in the comments, by libruls who otherwise seem to have a healthy sense of sarcasm.
2. The repeated denials of the Christwire authors (including Billings) that the site is not satire. In fact, the authors often defend their views in the comments and condemn those who disagree.

So here's my convoluted theory: I think the site is set up as satire (or sabotage), but that satire is so subtle that it invites real nutjobs to contribute to the site's content. Christwire openly invites fruitcakes like Billings to write articles, which lends the site some Christian legitimacy, thus furthering their agenda to sabotage the right.

That's my conspiracy theory, and I'm sticking to it!