Marcus Bachmann had maybe better cool it on women’s dress shops for awhile.
If only so a fake news site like National Report will stop heavily insinuating that he’s gay.
On the heels of a newly passed law in Indiana that prohibits state or local governments from interfering with a person’s religious beliefs, National Report, a site that has previously fooled readers, posted a story on former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) husband, who has often struck some as batting for the other team. The satirical report says the couple went to Indianapolis this week to push the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was signed into law by the state’s über conservative governor Mike Pence.
As satire goes, the story was pitch perfect. It says Marcus was promptly thrown out of Dotty’s Dress Den, which would make a hell of a name for a bath house or a gay bar. But it’s a dress shop. The phony owner thought he was gay. So she tossed him out and refused to serve him.
Dorothy Holts (ahem, “Dotty”) said nothing initially struck her as odd about Marcus.
“I didn’t think anything was out of the ordinary at first,” National Report wrote in an invented quote. “Although I don’t usually have men come in by themselves. He was very polite but the more he spoke the more I thought he was different.”
Yeah, different, as in she suspected that he was “perhaps a homosexual man.”
This part is true: Marcus notoriously shops for his wife’s clothing.
Fake: He was flabbergasted by the shop owner’s behavior and hilariously thought she had fallen ill.
This part is also true: In 2006, Michelle Bachman, who left Congress last year, told the Chicago Tribune that her husband has a good sense of style. Before a visit from Dick Cheney, her husband dolled her up in “a sleek, simple hourglass dress with a yoke collar in winter white.” Marcus’s ensemble included matching coat and shoes. “I just slipped it on,” she said.
LGBT Weekly initially fell for the story. There’s now an update ahead of the lede that reads: “UPDATE: This is satire, folks, from a political comedy website!”
The headline, however, remains.
Conservative Frontline also posted the story in its entirety. As of this morning, the site hadn’t updated the fact that it’s make believe.
Another website, which appears to be run by Elfkat, an L.A.-based druidess — stems from Celtic Mythology, may cast spells, a spiritual path supposedly rooted in the green Earth — also ran with the story.
Elfkat was far more responsible in her reporting than the other sites.
“Don’t know if it’s true but karma is a bitch,” the self-described liberal blogger wrote beneath a link to Conservative Frontline‘s reposting of National Report‘s story.