claim: Pastor Rick Scarborough asserted that breast cancer is caused by women's "dirty" thoughts.
origin: On 9 May 2017, Facebook page The Witty Liberal shared an article claiming Pastor Rick Scarborough attributed the cause of breast cancer to impure fantasies: The link led to a Politicops article dated 16 January 2016: < Just last year, Vision Americaâ€™s Rick Scarborough repeated his belief that AIDS is â€œGodâ€™s judgment on a sinful generation,â€ adding that â€œGod would probably give us the cure for AIDS todayâ€ if the U.S. stopped supporting gay rights. Commenting on the preparations for the event, Scarborough used the same pitch, only this time to refer to the fact that â€œU.S. women seem to be having a lot of dirty fantasies and thatâ€™s why God has also decided it would be a good idea to give them breast cancer so they could learn from their sins.â€ â€œYou know, weâ€™ve seen this happen before, and Iâ€™ve said it right from the start â€“ He is watching everything and He sees everything, you just canâ€™t hide anything from Him â€¦ First we had gays running rampant on Earth, so He took a look at that and decided we should have AIDS. Then, he saw some other abomination walking on the very planet that he built, so again he decided it was time for some punishment. And now, we have this â€“ a situation where American women canâ€™t get enough of dirty fantasies. Youâ€™ve got rape, kidnapping, incarceration, BDSM, anal, masturbation, you name it and our women are fantasizing about it. And sure enough, Heâ€™s watching closely. Why do you think we have breast cancer? Because Heâ€™s sick of what heâ€™s seeing.â€ > AlthoughÂ PoliticopsÂ (along withÂ sisterÂ sitesÂ Religionlo, Newslo, and Politicalo)Â are known fake news purveyors, the claimâ€™s reappearance on a popular Facebook page gave the story a veneer of authenticity. PoliticopsÂ and related sites usuallyÂ start each article withÂ a paragraph of factual information, followed byÂ the falsehoodsÂ featured in theirÂ headlines.Â On these sites, a buttonÂ allows readers to â€œshow factsâ€ or â€œhide facts,â€ butÂ all articles appear inÂ â€œhide factsâ€ mode by default, and many readers donâ€™t know about the function: WhenÂ â€œShow Factsâ€ isÂ activated, theÂ portions attributing the statements about breast cancer to Pastor Scarborough were not highlighted as truthful information: