Monday, July 7, 2008

It is Gay, or is it ...

One thing I don't like about web filters is how it can screw up legitimate research. A few years back, some may remember that such "parental blocks" stopped access to a website about the MarsExplorer because when typed as a single word it contained the word sex. Absolutely no apologies from creators of such filters; especially not Donna Rice, the hypocritical woman who brought down the equally two-faced Gary Hart.

Some sites have found another way around this. They substitute "offensive" words with other ones. For example, "gay" with "homosexual." Now why anyone would find the word gay offensive is beyond me; but it led to an embarrassing situation this past weekend, when an American athlete named Tyson Gay won the US 100 metre championship and qualified for the Olympics. An American conservative website run by the American Family Association -- OneNewsNow.com -- changed the name of Tyson Gay to Tyson Homosexual. Soon, wire services around the world were reporting that "Homosexual Breaks Greene's Record" and other similar headlines.

Not the kind of publicity Mr. Gay wants to be sure ... but any publicity is good publicity, I suppose. And still, absolutely no comment from the AFA.

BFS.

Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.

No comments: