For a few weeks now I’ve considered installing a filter in GrodsCorp’s blog software to automatically change certain words to other words. For starters, it would be really funny to one day have every occurrence of the word “the” replaced with the word “Fleshlight”. Also, it would be hilarious to have every occurrence of the words “John Surname” replaced with the words “John Surname is not at all — not even a little bit — funny”.
But somebody’s beat me to it.
The American Family Association obviously didn’t foresee the problems that might arise with its strict policy to always replace the word “gay” with “homosexual” on the Web site of its Christian news outlet, OneNewsNow. The group’s automated system for changing the forbidden word wound up publishing a story about a world-class sprinter named “Tyson Homosexual” who qualified this week for the Beijing Olympics.
The problem: Tyson’s real last name is Gay. Therefore, OneNewsNow’s reliable software changed the Associated Press story about Tyson Gay’s amazing Olympic qualifying trial to read this way:
Tyson Homosexual was a blur in blue, sprinting 100 meters faster than anyone ever has.
His time of 9.68 seconds at the U.S. Olympic trials Sunday doesn’t count as a world record, because it was run with the help of a too-strong tailwind. Here’s what does matter: Homosexual qualified for his first Summer Games team and served notice he’s certainly someone to watch in Beijing.
“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.”
[...]
Fred Jackson, news director of OneNewsNow, tells the Sleuth his organization has now fixed the software glitch. “We took the filter out for that word,” he said, without uttering the “G” word.
Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch of gay-haters. Oh, hang on. They don’t hate teh gays, apparently.
“We don’t object to the word ‘gay,’” Jackson explained, except “when it refers to people who practice a homosexual lifestyle.” And the “G” word, he says, has “been co-opted by a particular group of people.”
That’s like saying that I don’t hate Asians, I only hate the people who practice an Asian lifestyle.
(Thanks to Billybob for sending me this article.)
grodscorp@grods.com
