Whoopi Goldberg led a discussion on ABC's 'The View' on Monday about Pastor John Hagee, of Cornerstone Church, San Antonio, Texas and his alleged opinion that women who said God's name during sex should be prosecuted.
The story originally came from a Newslo article which referred to Hagee's preaching on the 10 Commandments. The article claims he said: "there is no greater sin in terms of wrongly using God's name than women who use it during sex. That is one of the filthiest, most derogatory and sinful uses of the Lord's name I can think of. If it were up to me, I would put every single woman or girl who does that in jail. That would be a fine example of God's wrath aimed at what is, in my opinion, a terrible misuse of our Maker's good name."
But the report was intended as satire. Hagee never made the comments, and Cornerstone Church's legal team has called all outlets that picked up on the story for a retraction or face legal action.
The Church told the Christian Post in a statement: "The story is a complete fabrication. It's written by a website that makes up these kind of stories in an effort to be humorous. All media outlets that have picked up this story have been contacted by John Hagee Ministries and will issue a retraction or face legal action."
'The View' wasn't the only place fooled by the story – in the UK, the Daily Mail and the Mirror also published articles on it, although these have since been taken down.
The TV show's mistake was called out by radio host Joe Pags, who saw it as an attack on Pastor Hagee. The John Hagee Ministries Facebook page posted a statement which thanked Pags for pointing out the mistake and said: "This is an excellent example of defamatory lies that are spread throughout the internet and fool those who don't know Pastor or would otherwise love a reason to speak ill of this man of God."
Newslo offers readers the chance to reveal which part of the article is true, by clicking on 'show facts' – in this case, it is true that Hagee preached on the 10 Commandments and taking the Lord's name in vain, but that's pretty much where the truth ends and fiction takes over.
The satirical website also published a story last week which said that Texas Senator Ted Cruz had called for the Vatican to fire Pope Francis. He didn't, just in case you were in any doubt.
