Politico reports that the AP's online stylebook has recently banned the term "homophobia." AP Deputy Standards Editor Dave Minthorn explained "it's just off the mark. It's ascribing a mental disability to someone, and suggests a knowledge that we don't have. It seems inaccurate. Instead, we would use something more neutral: anti-gay, or some such, if we had reason to believe that was the case." Slate's Nathaniel Frank disagrees with the decision stating that in an effort be appear neutral, the AP risks being part of the problem. James Rainey at the LA Times surveys the arguments for and against the decision and notes that homophobia may be the right term in some situations.
posted by Area Man on Nov 29, 2012 - 115 comments

Let's call a bigot a bigot.
posted by Artw on Nov 3, 2012 - 52 comments

Microaggressions. This blog seeks to provide a visual representation of the everyday of “microaggressions.” Each event, observation and experience posted is not necessarily particularly striking in and of themselves. Often, they are never meant to hurt - acts done with little conscious awareness of their meanings and effects. Instead, their slow accumulation during a childhood and over a lifetime is in part what defines a marginalized experience, making explanation and communication with someone who does not share this identity particularly difficult. Social others are microaggressed hourly, daily, weekly, monthly.
posted by prefpara on Jan 21, 2011 - 56 comments

''I don't think it's appropriate they feel discriminated against, and I'm very upset they feel that,'' "After inviting friends to her home for ''pre-drinks'', [Hannah Williams] stood on her doorstep and watched her classmates file into the darkness to attend one of the highlights of the school year. Instead of joining them, Hannah took off her heels and black dress and went to bed...A few weeks earlier a teacher had told the year 11 student she couldn't attend the dance with her 15-year-old girlfriend, Savannah Supski. She was asked to bring a male instead."
posted by rodgerd on Nov 10, 2010 - 70 comments

Over the last few days, a fair bit of attention on the web has been focused on Repent Amarillo MySpace YouTube, an organization dedicated to converting Amarillo, TX to the organization's particular brand of Christianity. Their tactics include "Spiritual Warfare" and witnessing, but also appear to involve harassing people who they believe to be sinners. They've even got a map of sinful places in Amarillo, including gay bars, Masonic lodges, rival churches, and other religions' places of worship. But not everybody is all that amused; blogs and websites have started springing up in response.
posted by Pope Guilty on Mar 3, 2010 - 139 comments

Judge rules same-sex marriage ban in Maryland unconstitutional. The progression towards equal rights moves ever on--NPR offers further coverage and an overview of current gay rights cases in the US. Meanwhile, in Oklahoma a reminder of why this fight must be won.
posted by schroedinger on Jan 20, 2006 - 72 comments

Ford folds to pressure from American Family Association; pulls ads from gay media The American Family Association is forthright about its efforts to take corporations "Head-On" who supposedly embrace the homosexual agenda; apparently in this instance it worked. Ford spokespeople are pitching a different story to the New York Times, claiming the ad withdraws were due to "cost cutting," but John Aravosis claims to have more sources who will confirm Ford's dealings with the AFA. One wonders how Ford could forget its founder's history of intolerance; not everyone is missing the connection.
posted by rkent on Dec 6, 2005 - 78 comments

Management aiming to clean house (NYT, acct. req'd) — Pope Joseph Ratzinger begins to fulfill his promise to rid the Catholic Church of freethinking undesirables who propagate an "unacceptable democratic model of the Church", starting with the rooting out of gay clergymen, who — by simple virtue of their sexuality — are assumed to be child molesters, never mind Ratzinger's complicity in widespread interference with investigations into and long-standing cover-ups of the Church's worst offenders.
posted by Rothko on Sep 14, 2005 - 79 comments

April 14, 2005: The Day of Truth. On April 13th thousands of students will don black-and-red t-shirts and remain quiet for the ninth Day of Silence in order to "recognize and protest the discrimination and harassment--in effect, the silencing--experienced by LGBT students and their allies." But this year the Alliance Defense Fund, "a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth [yes, "Truth" is capitalized] through strategy, training, funding, and litigation," plans to add a twist to the occasion by following up with its so called Day of Truth in order to protest the homosexual agenda and promote their interpretation of Christianity. Though in their "Hostile Questions" section they claim they're not Day of Silence copycats, in addition to the silent treatment like their DoS foes students who register will receive t-shirts and explanation cards to distribute to inquiring minds, albeit with a slightly altered message. But will it draw participants? Well, Clint Armstrong can't wait--he staged a protest of his own last year.
posted by schroedinger on Apr 13, 2005 - 43 comments

Bob Jones 2? Mr. DUI makes another misstep. Regardless of the outcome, the past 24 hours have been satisfying for Democrats
posted by owillis on Nov 2, 2000 - 0 comments

Boy Scouts: 1 Gay Memebers: 0 Court Says Boy Scouts Can Bar Gays, which is slightly troubling, in that a psuedo-national organization can make rules that go against government policy. I don't see how a scoutmaster being gay has anything to do with teaching kids how to tie knots and go camping though.
posted by mathowie on Jun 28, 2000 - 52 comments