The “Ultra Conservative Christian” website, Christwire.org has gotten alot of exposure lately in part thanks to an Aug. 14 column, “Is My Husband Gay? a 15-point checklist to help wives diagnose possibly closeted husbands, written by the now infamous Stephenson Billings which was picked up by even The Huffington Post and mentioned by Ryan Seacrest on his radio show. (Well Ryan was probably just checking ot out to see hopw many of the 15 points he hit.)
Well today the New York Times broke the news. CHRISTWIRE IS A JOKE! LITERALLY! 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.
And the BRILLANT minds behing Christwire belong to Bryan Butvidas is a software develope rfrom Southern California. and Kirwin Watson is a former Pepperdine student who now lives in Kansas.
Neither Mr. Watson nor Mr. Butvidas is a crusading atheist. Mr. Watson calls himself “an observant Catholic,” and Mr. Butvidas is a nondenominational Protestant who is “religious for the most part.” Their target, they say, is not Christians but those who do not question what they hear on the news.
“There’s just rampant idiocy in the media sometimes,” Mr. Watson said. “People watch their favorite news channels, don’t question it, and will regurgitate it the next day at the office. That is no good at all.
“Our main culprit,” he adds, “is Fox News.”
Marie Jon, who writes for the quite earnest conservative site RenewAmerica.com, used to allow her stories to be reposted to ChristWire. After I called her for this column, her editor at RenewAmerica wrote a letter to ChristWire asking that Ms. Jon’s writing — and her picture, which had run between photographs of men identified as “Jack Gould” and “S. Billings” — be removed.
I have to give credit where credit is due. A HUGE “Well Done!” goes to both Bryan Butvida and Kirwin Watson.