I Feel Pretty and Witty and ... What?

Under the category of "You Just Couldn't Make This Kind of Stuff Up!" we have this doozy about the "news" source that is promoted on the web sites of Diane Gramley's American Family Association of Pennsylvania and Jane Richey's radio station WAWN 89.5 FM.

It seems to be part of their efforts to rid the world of gay people, or at least any media representations of them, in any way they can.

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The Washington Post
Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Having an "auto-replace" filter seemed like a good notion at the time to folks at the conservative American Family Association's OneNewsNow.com Web site. There were certain words that would pop up from time to time in the Associated Press stories that moved onto the site that were a bit salacious, or unacceptable to post.

"We don't have the staff to monitor all the Hollywood stories," news director Fred Jackson said yesterday, "so we wanted an automated function." He said they put up the filter about a month or so ago.

One word they wanted to filter was "gay." The site felt that the term put the matter of homosexuality "in a positive light," Jackson said, when the evangelical Christian organization was much opposed. So when a wire story referred to gay marriage, for example, the phrase would automatically appear as "homosexual marriage."

Worked fine until Sunday, when the AP reported that "Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials." The story was headlined "Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials."

"On Saturday," the story said, "Homosexual misjudged the finish in his opening heat . . ."

That's world champion sprinter Tyson Gay, of course.

The filtered stories were spotted by the liberal People for the American Way. The organization has a "Right Wing Watch Blog," communications director Peter Montgomery said, and folks "who monitor religious-right Web sites as part of watchdogging the religious right and its political allies."

The organization took a screen capture, he said, just before OneNewsNow fixed the text.

An earlier story on the Web site referred to pro basketball player Rudy Homosexual, better known as Rudy Gay.

Apparently there were no references in the past month to writer Homosexual Talese or to the Enola Homosexual.

As with all good pieces of software, Jackson said, there are drawbacks. It was "a lesson for us to learn," he said. Jackson didn't know what other words were targeted, but "we have taken ['gay'] off the filter."

So at Christmas you can don that gay apparel.

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But wait! Doesn't one of their commandments say "You Shall Not Bear False Witness Against Your Neighbor" ??

We're confused ...

For a reminder of who in Venango County is supporting these sinful tactics, see the list of the Board of Directors of Lighthouse Ministries of Franklin, Inc., the local sponsor of American Family Radio station WAWN 89.5 FM: http://wawn.afr.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=15&Itemid=35