As hoaxes go this one takes the cake

Pseudopastor Jordan Brown, who doesn't think much of what Scripture teaches about human sexuality, recently received a great deal of publicity when he falsely accused Whole Foods of putting a slur on his own sexuality on a cake he ordered (see right). As Mollie Ziegler Hemingway conclusively demonstrates, they did no such thing.

But she does point out useful lessons from the incident on how to bamboozle a credulous and generally good-hearted public when trying to win illicit sympathy.

More of this kind of thing goes on than you'd think. In fairness, it's not limited to the Left (I remember an incident during the 2008 campaign in which a Republican worker falsely accused Democrats of assaulting her and inscribing slogans on her face). But given the  Left's particular penchant for appealing to the emotions rather than the intellect,  it would make sense for all of us to fortify ourselves with an extra bit of prophylactic scepticism when a people whose entire argument and indeed entire case rests upon their victimhood make a public issue of such an incident. That's especially the case when a group's most potent and common argument is an attack on the character and motives of those who disagree with it.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be believed. Only that they shouldn't be believed- and those they accuse disbelieved- until the evidence is in. Not a common practice, I fear, among the liberal media these days.