Homophobic news site changes athlete Tyson Gay to Tyson Homosexual

The funny people who run the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow site are so frightened of gays that they've set up a filter to change every instance of the word "gay" to "homosexual."

And while they may have fixed this particular instance, it looks like they haven't gone back through their archives and corrected other articles where this happened, such as this article where professional basketball player Rudy Gay is referred to as "Rudy Homosexual."

The Dangers of Auto-Replace (Right Wing Watch)

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eti

That’s so homosexual!
Anonymous

This may seem funny at first, but it is actually much more threatening. This is Karl Rove tactics, their research has found that referring to people as homosexual instead of gay makes swing voters more likely to oppose gay rights and politicians who support them. This is because the word homosexual has the word “sex” in it, so it makes those readers visualize gay sex.
Mitch

Don we how our homosexual apparel.
Fa la la la la, la la la la.
BostonLibertarian

I see a lot of left knees jerking here. Is it possible the hated AFA is terrified (just like everyone else) of breaking our ultra-sensitive liberal speech codes? I believe the term “homosexual” is a more politically correct term than calling someone “gay”. Incompetence, yes. Sinister: Doubtful.

…Just playing devil’s advocate. But then again, it’s much easier to bash everyone’s favorite bogeyman, the religious right. I’m going to go hide in my cubicle in case they come try to force me to go to church again.
Takuan

jeebus hated lovers marrying because of the melanin content of their hides? I suspect you might be a loony.
mujadaddy

Outed! :P
zENithFisHstiX

“It means a lot to me,” the 25-year-old Homosexual said. “I’m glad my body could do it, because now I know I have it in me.”
eti

They did this back on June 3rd.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&scoring=n&q=tyson-homosexual&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&start=10
Takuan

what does “Bush” turn into?
Giovanni

Wow…just…wow.

I always thought that homosexual was the preferred term in news while gay was more informal. Evidently from the AP handbook I’m wrong but I think a lot of people might have that impression.

I don’t know anything about the source site but I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt rather than assigning hateful labels (and yes homophobe is often used as hate speech).

For instance, if I oppose gay marriage I’m automatically branded a homophobe. Do I fear gay people? No. But that doesn’t matter does it to people that are willing to throw hateful labels on anyone that disagrees with them.

I reserve the right to disagree but I will try to be polite about :)
Takuan

bloody mammals
Middletown

Sms mr f n ttmpt t pps th hyprsnstv PC nz’s.
Bt t wld mk sns tht th gy cmmnty wld hv sss wth st knwn s th “mrcn fmly”
mks thm fl ncmfrtbl wth thr crrnt prfrncs.
Antinous

Giovanni,

Just come out. It’s easier than writing passive aggressive homophobic posts.
Anonymous

I wonder what would happen if I mentioned the

Penis van Lesbian Show from the classic era of TV?
slywy

Does this mean historical references will be changed to the Enola Homosexual?
JDspeeder1

What about Sleeping Beauty penising her finger?

Or the song “Breastwillow, Breastwillow, Breastwillow”?

Or for that matter “What’s New, Vagina-Cat?”
Dan

If you put the word “Family” in your group’s name, I think your collective IQ drops to near lethal levels of stupidity.
Antinous

I hear that when you’re with the Flintstones, you’ll have a homosexual old time.

So that’s why when Fred wins the fight, that pussy will stay out all the night. How did I miss all that subtext when I was a child?
Mazoola

…or the next news story about Dick van Dyke.

Reminds me of the time a friend posted something to Craigslist using the phrase “an all-inclusive” … only to have the final listing read “l-inclusive.”
ill lich

There’s a place where you can order NFL jerseys with your name on the back, or the name of your favorite player, but they wouldn’t allow the word “gay” on the back, despite the fact that there is a well-known player named Randall Gay.
Anonymous

Do they say whether they bothered to get permission from the AP before rewriting AP copy?
Antinous

BostonLibertarian,

If that sad, canned excuse for a point is the best that you can come up with, stay in your cubicle.
Nora

I feel pretty and witty and homosexual!
angusm

Something tells me that the traditional children’s story about the little Dutch boy with his thumb in the dyke would not be family-friendly fare after a trip through their content filter.
Xopher

Giovanni, if you insist on construing ‘homophobe’ as the sum of its parts, then unless you fear people just like you, you’re not a homophobe. You know perfectly well what the word really means.

And yes, if you oppose gay marriage you are a homophobe. Period. All adult humans have the right to choose whom they marry (mutually, of course, and respecting consanguinity). Denying that right on the basis of people matching in sex is either a) denying their humanity or b) denying their adulthood. Either is homophobic.

In fact, “I’m not a homophobe because I’m not afraid of homosexuals” is a statement only a homophobe can make.
Dillenger69

When I was a lad back in Wisconsin there was a man in office named Homosexuallord Nelson.
Middletown

lethal levels of stupidity are achieved by ignorant associations to justify your distracted mind.
goodasyou

Thanks for the link, John.

Yes, this has been going on for quite some time. At G-A-Y, we’ve been tracking the alterations for over a year. In one particularly egregious instance, they went so far as to change the AP’s usage of the term “same-sex opponents” so that it instead reads “advocates of traditional marriage”:

http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2008/06/moral-groups-co.html
oheso

So we’re all agreed that they’re either:

a) incompetent, bumbling homophobes; or

b) just plain stupid.

In either case, the ridicule is warranted. It’s not as if it takes a lot of foresight to imagine this as a possible consequence.
Takuan

there is no need to complicate things, they’re just assholes.
ROSSINDETROIT

And we all had a homosexual old time!
angusm

Didymos: the editors of Merriam-Webster, the American Heritage Dictionary, the OED, the Longman English Dictionary and the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary (to name only a few) will no doubt be disappointed to learn that you don’t consider them to be ‘proper’ dictionaries.
Antinous

Shouldn’t this and the gummi lighthouses have been published Saturday?
Mikey Likes BoingBoing

Did they correct instances of the phrase “conservative Christian” with “brain dead, hate-mongering sh*t-stain”?
Bennessy

“Does this mean historical references will be changed to the Enola Homosexual?”

More proof that gays invented the atom bomb.
John Coulthart

Anyone who thinks the AFA isn’t homophobic should go through the AFA archive at Goodasyou.org:

http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/afa/

Or simply search the AFA’s own site for some of the anti-gay crap they sell.
wylkyn

I hear that when you’re with the Flintstones, you’ll have a homosexual old time.
Takuan

knave girl or gay girl?
http://books.google.com/books?id=8rgUeEpWfbsC&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=middle+english+gay+gurle&source=web&ots=WHQDaGSsMj&sig=IuKQvmJ7qlPANk5z6hPb-Ks99Sk&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA120,M1
justONEguy

Why doesn’t the American Family Association change tactics as far as this auto-replace nonsense goes? Instead of just hinting at gay sex with the word ‘homosexual’, they should go whole hog, so to speak.

I suggest as new substitutes for the word gay, “ordering a c*ck-and-ball-sandwich” or “swinging from the skin chandeliers”.
Antinous

Personally, I prefer to be referred to as Butt Pirate.

Arr.
Xopher

Anonymous 2: We know why these scumbags HAVE these automatic content filters. It’s just part of their ongoing effort to bear false witness against their neighbors to the extent possible.

It’s nice to see them make fools of themselves so obviously, that’s all.

Middletown 15: I suspect that if your comment here were even marginally coherent it would lose its vowels like your earlier spew.
Xopher

Let’s get together and “make some hot pork sandwiches”!
Takuan

I see a sad lack of clearly female commentary here. Is it because they are used to disappointment?
Bitgod

Haha, this reminds me about when I had typeit4me auto-replacing “crash” for “unexpectedly quit”. And then one day I was chatting with someone regarding a plane crash, and of course it came out “plane unexpectedly quit”.
ROSSINDETROIT

Already covered by editorial cartoonists
aeschenkarnos

However obnoxious and stupid their agenda, at least they are willing to show a minimal level of respect for other people, and *explain why* they do the censorship that they do.
Takuan

? #25 belongs on the gummi penis thread
apostle

You’re so stupid Dwigt!!
KurtMac

The Yahoo article: Gay runs 100 in windy 9.68 to make US Olympic team, if you scroll to the bottom and read the Sponsored Links, is equally unfortunate:

Sponsored Links
–
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Browse Photos & Meet Single People Free Search and Profiles.

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Browse photo profiles of local gay men into fitness. Join now for free.

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Way to go, adbots!
Dan

Middletown , June 30, 2008 11:08 AM

lethal levels of stupidity are achieved by ignorant associations to justify your distracted mind.

Do you need a tissue?

It’ll be okay, little badger. Just step away from the family cult, and you might learn to spell.
Doc Tourneau

#7 –

I guess the current administration would be George Vagina & Penis Cheney.
mrfoo

Hah, the headline from Google news had me in hysterics for a good two minutes: “Close call: Homosexual barely averts major flop in 100″

I am going to hell.
Anonymous

Perhaps the news organization is back in the African-American.
Torley

All homosexuals are gay, but not all Gays are homosexual. :p
Antinous

All homosexuals are gay

That is so not true. Roy Cohn? Mark Foley? Larry Craig?
Thomas

I don’t think this is necessarily a human decision or a value judgment.

It looks to me like a poorly implemented automation of a journalistic style manual that says “to avoid ambiguity and respect the subject’s dignity, use the term ‘homosexual’ instead of ‘gay’ or ‘queer’.”

Do any readers here have access to the AP Style Book to shed additional light on this?

As the saying goes, don’t attribute to malice that which can be more easily explained by stupidity.
John Coulthart

Ted Haggard? Although he claims to be “cured” or something now.
bxrguy

I can’t wait until the next time they have a story about drag racing!
Brett Burton

I’m so mad! Tyson Homosexual is the stage name I use when I do my stage show!
didymos

Angusm: The difference there is that, generally speaking, the accepted spelling of the word for a water-retaining wall is “dike”. The only people who confuse the two are those who can’t be bothered to check a proper dictionary.
Another Aaron

*Giovanni*

You think the term “homophobe” is hate speech?

From http://www.thefreedictionary.com/homophobic

hoÂ·moÂ·phoÂ·biÂ·a (hm-fb-)
n.
1. Fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men.
2. Behavior based on such a feeling.

You don’t believe in gay marriage?

I think denial of basic human rights counts pretty clearly as contempt.

Let me give you an example….”I don’t hate Jews, and I’m not afraid of them. Just because I don’t think they should be allowed to get married, or say, vote, doesn’t mean I have a problem with them.”

I think you need to take a long, hard look into the mirror, Giovanni.
stratosfyr

@34-

The APA publication manual says “homosexual” is to be avoided, in favour of “gay men and lesbians,” because it can be considered biased or pejorative.

The AP style guide defers to the NLGJA’s stylebook supplement on terminology, which says “Use only if â€œheterosexualâ€ would be used in parallel constructions, such as in medical contexts.”

The style guides say the opposite, basically. Doesn’t rule out stupidity, though.
JDspeeder1

Xopher: That was George Carlin. RIP
Xopher

JDSpeeder1: Like Lenny Bruce (I think it was) said about obscenity law, “You can prick your finger but you can’t finger your prick.”
Antinous

Invert is a nice retro choice. Sodomite should only be used when going for the grand effect. Back in the early nineties, the newspapers in San Francisco used queer quite regularly, per demands from the community. I think that it’s still considered a style choice there. But nobody would use homosexual. That’s crack talk.
Xopher

Thomas 34: I’m afraid it takes both malice AND incompetence to explain this one. They change ‘gay’ to ‘homosexual’ in reports from other sources out of homophobia. If you don’t believe that, you haven’t been paying attention to the last 10 years of politics.

Things like “African-American is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” are equally incompetent but not malicious.
rhymantha

Lest we forget, the guy who finished second (thus qualifying for the Beijing team) was WALTER DIX…
Pop Cesspool

Would Marvin Gaye be “Marvin HomosexuÃ¡le”?
Anonymous

this reminds me of a post from last week about funny headlines…

here’s a baseball card which has been “corrected” to say that the black printing on their shirts is actually “african american printing”
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/jbistlin/headlines/168.jpg
Benito

This happened once with the LA Times:

Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed wrote that the opera “Die Frau Ohne Schatten” is “an incomparably glorious and goofy pro-life paean.” But when the review ran in the paper, pro-life had been changed to anti-abortion. “Swed was reportedly mortified, since the opera is not remotely about abortion,” Kevin Roderick writes in LA Observed.
samrolken

This is bothersome on so many levels.

One of which is that news stories frequently quote people. These people probably don’t appreciate the AFA lying about what they’ve said.

These people believe there are invisible demons roaming around haunting us, to be afraid of. In that perspective, being afraid of gay people isn’t so bad since at least gay people are real.
Chocolatey Shatner

@ Antinous:
Q. Why was the butt-pirate sad?
A. He lost his booty.

Bwah hah hah!

I totally got called a “homo” while I was waiting to cross the street to get to my car. This happened just eight months ago on my college campus. I’m still trying to figure out what gave it away. Must have been all of the nude go-go boys carrying my palanquin.

Oh! And here is a quote from “Homer’s Phobia”

Homer: “Hey! We owe this guy, and I don’t want you calling him a sissy. This guy’s a fruit, and a… no, wait, wait, wait: queer, queer queer! That’s what you like to be called, right?”

John Waters (who was guest-starring):”Well, that or John.”
unit_1421

as we all know, “family values” means white supremacy.
John Coulthart

I see a lot of left knees jerking here. Is it possible the hated AFA is terrified (just like everyone else) of breaking our ultra-sensitive liberal speech codes?

Er, no. Like Wildmon and his goons give a damn about PC. They’ve been doing this for ages, as I noted above. One of many:

http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2007/06/those-who-try-t.html
XenonII

Gvnn, cn crtnly sympthz… Fr nstnc, f pps ntrrcl mrrg ‘m tmtclly brndd rcst. D ht blck ppl? N. smply blv n prsrvng th rcl dvrsty tht Gd hs crtd. Bt tht dsn’t mttr ds t t ppl tht r wllng t thrw htfl lbls n nyn tht dsgrs wth thm.