Thursday, May 15, 2014

Anti-gay BarbWire reveals source of distorted picture, still flippant about its use

In my last post, I talked about how Right Wing Watch discovered that the rabidly anti-gay online news source, BarbWire ran photo-shopped picture to accompany an awful story linking gay men to pedophilia.

The picture was originally this:


But BarbWire ran a photo-shopped copy which looked like this:


BarbWire subsequently removed the photo but the author of the article, Jeff Allen, was highly flippant about the photo, calling it an innocent mistake. In addition, he implied that the picture was pulled from the internet and actually attempted to blame Right Wing Watch for discovering his mistake.

Allen's nonchalant attitude wasn't enough for me. I felt that he or someone else from BarbWire had to answer for the photo. To imply that anyone is a pedophile or support pedophilia in any way is a serious charge.

I asked questions on the comments section of the article and said that the site needed to apologize to the two men featured in the photo. In all honesty, I did call the folks there "shysters, " but that was the strongest word I used.

I also engaged Allen on twitter. I got results on both fronts. I have been barred from commenting on  BarbWire articles (at least at press time I am.) However, I got the following message from Allen as to where the picture came from (editor's note - the other name included is another person also wanting to know where the picture came from):

So Allen got this awful picture from google and from what happened, it's obvious that he didn't even try to check its veracity.  And then he becomes not only flippant about it but attempts to blame Right Wing Watch for discovering the error.

It's something to keep in mind and bring up about BarbWire, its writers, and ultimately its founder, the Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber.

This publication claims that it is working for Christianity. I don't think Jesus would recognize the type of Christianity this publication has in mind.

1 comment:

Bose in St. Peter MN said...

Good work pressing the issue with them, Alvin.

Whatever the claimed source of the image, halfway-aware people know that, first, N****A (yeah, it's an n-word that doesn't deserve to be spelled out) hasn't existed in decades, and second, promoting anything that links recognizable people to it is scurrilous and inflammatory.

If (God forbid) such a link gained even nominal attention or credibility, it could ruin families and careers without being true.