In April 2026, posts on social media sites such as Facebook and Threads claimed a televangelist in Texas who predicted Iran would surrender to the U.S. on Easter accidentally emailed his congregation the details of his account on the same-sex dating app Grindr.
Some users seemed to interpret the rumor about the televangelist as true, and Snopes readers contacted us to investigate its legitimacy.
(Facebook user Leila Habib)
To investigate the rumor's legitimacy, we first used search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo to search for further details. If real, such an event would create news coverage (and accompanying discourse online), and the search results would reflect that.
However, that was not the case, and there was no credible reporting about the televangelist's supposed mishap. It's also worth noting that the posts sharing the rumor did not include any specific information, such as the purported televangelist's name or the name of his church.
Instead, we found that the rumor's original source was The Halfway Post, a network of social media pages known for publishing satirical news content. It first shared the rumor to all its social media pages on April 5, 2026.
Although the post about the televangelist itself was not labeled satire, The Halfway Post's social media bios highlight its unserious mission. For instance, its X bio reads "Dadaist graffiti news. Halfway true comedy and satire for your doomscrolling by @DashMacIntyre." Similarly, its Facebook bio reads "The Halfway Post is America's #1 source of Dada news."
(Dada refers to the early 20th-century art movement of the same name, often characterized by absurdism and irreverence.)
Despite this particular claim being satirical, Snopes did find evidence of a similar thing happening for real. According to The Washington Post, in 2015 a gay news site published images of a Michigan pastor's Grindr profile. The pastor resigned shortly thereafter.
Snopes has debunked satirical stories from The Halfway Post before. For example, in March 2026, we alerted readers to a fake story from the outlet claiming that U.S. soldiers kept sarcastically shouting "For Epstein!" when saluting their officers.
Because the effectiveness of satire is subjective, we use "originated as satire" or "labeled satire" ratings based on creators' description of their work. It's your call on whether you agree.