The Limits Of Conservative Tolerance

Yesterday, Atrios reported that "Moonie Times says Nothing Gay Except Sullivan," linking to an article which notes that the Confederacy's Paper routinely rewrites letters to the editor -- without the writer's consent -- to replace the word "gay" with "homosexual." In the article, Andrew Sullivan suggested that he was exempt from the Times' ban on the word gay. "They run excepts from my blog each week, " says Sullivan. "I've not yet seen any changes of that sort. " Sully further stated that "objecting to the term �gay� is bizarre" and that "[t]he key is linguistic honesty and simplicity. "

Well, you're no longer exempt, Sully. The editors at the Moonie Times, apparently fearing criticism that they were using quotas or preferences, have removed the word gay from Sully's column as well. Here's Sully's Weekly Dish column of today's date:

The Family Foundation of America was celebrating this week about the Virginia Senate's decision to keep homosexuals off a list of groups protected by hate crimes laws. The rationale for providing protection for every vulnerable group in society except homosexuals was given as follows in the foundation's "Victory Alert" e-mail: "The Senate committee agreed that these [homosexual] individuals are already protected under the law like everyone else. They clearly understood that Virginia's current law protects classes of individual based on immutable characteristics, like race, color, national origin and religious beliefs." Now that's an interesting theological innovation: religious faith as an "immutable characteristic." So conversion is now impossible? Faith is no longer a choice? Can people born Jewish or atheist never change their religious beliefs? Apparently not. Don't get me wrong: I'm against all hate-crimes laws. But if you're going to have them, they should at least be applied fairly. Carving out an exception for homosexuals makes no logical sense at all � at least along the bizarre lines advocated by the Family Foundation. (Emphasis added.)

Now that paragraph isn't an excerpt from Sully's blog this week, so Sully's already lacking credibility here. But the blog did have a long post on hate crimes laws (and a exception thereto for gay men and lesbians) in which he only used the word gay, and didn't use homosexual. So what are the chances that Sully's original copy for the Weekly Dish didn't use the linguistically honest and simple "gay"?

There's two possibilities: Either the paper is censoring Sully or Sully's censoring himself to stay in the good graces of the Father's editors. Either way, it's hilarious -- A tale of Orwell that ends well.