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Comment by dmurray | Hacker News Reader

It would be surprising if someone hadn't made such a ridiculous claim. But in an article on gay marriage in the US, would the NY Times really have felt the need to observe that "one preacher even claimed - with no evidence - that homosexuality caused earthquakes"?

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Of course. It may be ridiculous, but it's nonetheless the kind of myth that spreads quickly among certain conservative communities. I wouldn't be surprised if plenty of conservative Saudi Arabians believed such a myth. Just like plenty of American conservatives believed Todd Akin's infamous claim regarding "legitimate rape": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todd_Akin#Controversial_commen...

If enough people are credulous, it's absolutely newsworthy, as it reflects how deeply wedded some people are to a particular perspective. Confirmation bias is a powerful thing.

I'm fairly certain I've read numerous articles to that effect; for instance, here's an oped discussing Lesbians being blamed for Irma.[0] It was a trivial to find.

0: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/did-lesbians-cause-h...

> But in an article on gay marriage in the US, would the NY Times really have felt the need to observe that "one preacher even claimed - with no evidence - that homosexuality caused earthquakes"?

https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anytimes.com+god+punis...

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121322&page=1 ; "Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for Attacks" [on WTC]

Pat Robertson was doing this 20 years ago, and I don't think he's really stopped: https://www.au.org/media/press-releases/tv-preacher-pat-robe...

> in an article on gay marriage in the US, would the NY Times really have felt the need to observe that "one preacher even claimed - with no evidence - that homosexuality caused earthquakes"?

From what I know about NYT - definitely yes. Probably not in every article on the topic, but at least in some. It is a sensational claim which generates outrage - bread and butter of modern journalism.

Can you find one example? I can't.

There's an example right in this thread from WaPo and hurricanes. I don't have specific example about gay marriage (I must admit, I do not study NYT that closely to have cross-reference of every article years back, though I do occasionally read their articles) right now, but as a general principle, it is completely normal for their style to do something like that and the example of Saudi cleric is not something that is out of the normal modus operandi. I think that was the original point.

It depends on how much political influence that specific preacher wielded. In Saudi, clerics wield a LOT of political influence. They're not just religious advisers, they get to set and interpret law based on their understanding of the Quran and the Hadiths.

No, mainly depends on how much outrage can be mined out of it. Influence is largely the byproduct of the press attention, at least in the scales we have in the US, and the press wants to have people engaged (clicks, views, ads) and also preferably show their political opponents are crazy evil idiots. Emphasizing outrageously stupid claims by some obscure personality serves both goals - people get outraged, share the links, ad impressions follow, discussion follows, etc. etc.

>Influence is largely the byproduct of the press attention

That's not how it works with clerics in Saudi. They have official standing with the government, have their own police force with the authority to enforce morality laws (the mutaween), and even get to decide who the next king will be.

They have - often this is used to portray the other side as kooks, and delegitimize them (not that they were very legitimate to start out with).

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