No, President Obama did not seat gay couples around Kim Davis at the State of the Union

Did you hear that, in response to Kim Davis attending the State of the Union address, President Obama got several same-sex couples to sit around her?

Of course you’ve heard that – at least if you use Facebook. The Internet hoax machinehas been churning out that nonsensical item for several days now after President Obama’s final State of the Union address on Tuesday. And, even people you love dearly are sharing it.

The problem is that it’s not true and has its origins in one of those “satire” sites – content machines that don’t actually report news or offer any real comedic value either –but instead create inflammatory headlines and unbelievable storiesthat confirm people’s existing biases.

The site is called Free Wood Post.

“Previous fake news articles from Free Wood post included claims that Lindsey Graham badmouthed the GOP after dropping out of the 2016 race, that Ted Nugent was placed on suicide watch after learning he was half black, and that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) designated Fox News as a ‘hate group,'” explained Kim LaCapria forhoax-debunking site Snopes.

It is true that Davis attended the State of the Union address as the guest of Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, ABC reported.

It’s easy to see why the fake part to the narrative keeps getting shared, though. After all, Davis became emblematic of a certain style of extremist religious zealotry after she, as a taxpayer-paid marriage clerk in Kentucky, refused to sign her name to same-sex marriage certificates.

In other words, Davis, and others like her, were standing athwart a social issue the vast majority of Americans already reached a consensus on – and, more importantly, that the Supreme Court had ruled decisively on in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015.

So, the notion that Davis would be surrounded by gay couples –forced to encounter human beings she seems to not want to extend full human rights toward –presents readers a comforting bit of irony.

If you think about it, though, it makes little sense.

First, such a petty political action is generally beneath President Obama – or any sitting president in either major party, really.More than that, though, is the fact that everyone’s thinking about Kim Davis in this situation instead of the gay couples.

Think about it: If Kim Davis were forced to sit in between a bunch of same-sex couples, that logicallymeans a lot of same-sex couples would be forced to sit next to Kim Davis.