Punk'd!

Textually, the top story at EDGE on Aug. 25 was about televangelist Pat Robertson, a reliable oracle of absurdities, claiming that the earthquake that rattled the East Coast a couple of days earlier was God's way of shaking us up, like a parent dealing with an unruly child.

Subtextually, the story was about magical thinking: The kind of logic that allows someone to claim a direct link between a natural disaster and a form of human conduct that some individuals find objectionable, though it may be innocuous in and of itself and, frankly, none of their business.

While the story made (if I may say so, having written it) valid points, it was factually incorrect -- and I don't mean because of the magical thinking it discussed. I mean the story wasn't true. It was based on a source that had not reported on an actual event, but rather fabricated an account for the purpose of poking fun.

The source of the EDGE story was an Aug. 24 item posted at The Borowitz Report. That item said that earlier in the day, on a broadcast of his show The 700 Club, Robertson had claimed that God was smiting America for letting its menfolk wear makeup and worry about clothing. The article said that this was "gay-like" behavior that God could not condone.

Tried, true, and trusted channels directed me to The Borowtiz Report and the fake news item that had been posted there in jest. Only, I didn't know that it was in jest. I thought it was true. Tried and true and trusted as our channels may be, no system is foolproof... and in this instance, I was fooled.

In my defense, let me note that the story seemed entirely plausible. Robertson has generated such a cavalcade of nonsense, much of it anti-gay and some of it horrifically offensive, that this fake news item seemed to fit perfectly into the arc of real news that the televangelist has generated over the years. (Hello? The 9/11 terrorist attacks being the fault of gays and feminists? Haiti's devastating earthquake being the price of a deal the Haitians made with the Devil? I mean... Hello?)

In this instance, though, it turns out that Robertson actually refrained, initially, from making the sort of apocalyptic announcement for which he's known. In fact, he said he did not have "any kind of particular revelation" concerning the quake -- well, not until a couple of days later, when he found a suitably magical "God is gonna get you" significance in damage that the trembler caused to the Washington Monument.

"It seems to me the Washington Monument is a symbol of America's power," Robertson said the day after the quake, according to the Washington Post.

"It has been the symbol of our great nation," Robertson continued. "We look at the symbol and we say, 'This is one nation under God.' Now there's a crack in it... Is that sign from the Lord? ... You judge. It seems to me symbolic."

Of course, to some of us, cracks in an overstated phallic symbol are just cracks in an overstated phallic symbol.

Normally, when writing an aggregate news story, I try to find multiple sources to verify the information. Sometimes, when there's a fresh, hot lead out there, it's not possible. The Borowitz Report account said that the claims had been broadcast that same day; it didn't seem too surprising that one of the other gay news sites, or even Free Republic (that bastion of up-to-the-minute gay news) hadn't yet gotten hold of the story, because who -- I mean, seriously, who --�watches "The 700 Club?"

In other words, I thought I had a story that was so new none of the other GLBT outlets had come across it yet. I also thought I had a hilarious story just begging to be written, one that could end with a pointed little twist: In a comment on the nature of magical thinking, I noted that while religious conservatives seem to believe that two men or two women in a committed and loving relationship are a proximate cause of earthquakes and typhoons, they also tend to reject the much more credible idea that the earth's climate is changing because of other, much more widespread, forms of human activity.

Maybe I was the victim of my own brand of magical thinking. Maybe in the back of my mind I had expected this very response from Pat Robertson. (I, too, have the brain of a satirist.) It didn't help that I'd never heard of The Borowitz Report (though, from what I now gather, to those knowledgeable, reporting on a story from that site is akin to reporting on a story found at The Onion).

In the end, we've learned a few lessons on how to tighten up our news channels and how to take The Borowitz Report with a shaker of salt. Hopefully, the original story gave its readers a smile (at least one sharp-eyed EDGE reader pointed out in a comment that The Borowitz Report trades in fake, funny "news.")

But there's a serious side to this, too, and that has to do with getting smarter when you do something dumb. It also has to do with being honest enough to say you were wrong when, in fact, you were wrong.

This is important. How many times have you seen and heard the same discredited and distorted talking points from anti-gay groups out to demolish our families, our rights, our livelihoods, and our place in society? Study after study shows that gay parents are good parents, and their kids do as well as kids from any two-parent home, gay or straight. But time and time again, anti-gay groups tout studies the "prove" our kids don't thrive. The studies they refer to are focused on single parent homes, not two-parent homes, but our opponents, intent on slandering us and not, perhaps, overly concerned with the truth, never acknowledge this. They simply repeat the lie.

I don't want to be that guy. I don't want EDGE to be that news resource. We're accused of not being objective, sometimes, and insofar as we are a gay publication serving a gay readership and telling our own, gay stories the way we see them, that might even be true. But when we make a mistake, we own it. We fix it. We learn from it.

That's what I want to do with this column: Say that I don't have to be right. But I do have to act in good faith and, when I get it wrong, stand up, fess up, and do better.

Now, don't we all feel better I, for one, could use a chocolate chip cookie and a glass of milk after the wholesome moral of this week's column. :-)