Misleading posts claim video shows church set ablaze by lightning during gay wedding

“Fire gutted a church in Boston on 3rd June as two famous homosexuals were getting married. Suddenly a powerful lightning struck this church which immediately caught uncontrollable fire despite having lightning conductors,” reads a Facebook post shared on June 10, 2023.

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A screenshot of the misleading post, taken on June 17, 2023

Shared more than a hundred times, the post features a video of a church on fire. The logo of the news outlet “Boston 25 News” appears in the bottom right corner.

The post described homosexuality as “nonsense,” attributing the fire to divine retribution.

Published on a fan page of conservative Nigerian preacher Mike Bamiloye, the post elicited more than 130 comments, many of them homophobic.

A Twitter account published the same video and caption on June 11, 2023. The video along with a similar claim went viral on Facebook in South Africa.

The posts coincided with Pride Month, which is celebrated in June in the United States and many other countries.

But the claim that the church was struck by lightning while hosting a gay wedding is misleading.

‘Lightning’

Using the InVID-WeVerify video verification tool, AFP Fact Check found that the footage was first posted on Twitter on June 2, 2023 by American journalist Jason Law (archived here).

Law said the video showed the First Congregational Church of Spencer burning. The church is in Spencer, Massachusetts, and not Boston, as claimed.

Although the church supports LGTBQ rights, having published social media posts (here and here) that celebrated Pride Month, it was not burnt to the ground during a gay wedding.

The interim pastor of the centuries-old church told Boston 25 News the church was built with wood in the late 1800s, which is why it burned quickly, but no one was inside when the fire started (archived here).

Local media also reported that investigators believed the afternoon blaze was caused by lightning (archived here).

According to Eastern Kentucky University, lightning is one of the most common causes of house fires (archived here).

“Lightning fires most commonly occur during the summer months when afternoon and early evening storms are at their peak,” said a blog post on the university’s website.

The National Interagency Fire Center said lightning caused at least 7,467 fire incidents in the United States in 2022 (archived here).

AFP Fact Check also debunked the same claim in French here.