I honestly don’t even know what category this story falls into, but by the time I finished laughing, I decided it was worth a few inches of virtual ink here at TMV. Apparently there are some web sites or “news” services on the web which use their spellchecker’s Auto Replace function to tune up their news text to be friendly to their target demographics. In the case of some of the religious, “pro-family” sites, it seems that they mysteriously choose to replace the word “gay” with “homosexual.” (More on that later.)

Anyway, with a hat tip to The Carpetbagger Report, I would direct your attention to Right Wing Watch for a story about what happens when one such site decides to report on the Olympic swimming trials. Sounds fairly mundane, until you note that some new swimming records were set by a gentleman named Tyson Gay. (EDIT: As was quickly pointed out, it was the track and field trials, not swimming. Sorry about that. I had just finished watching some of the swim trials and had that stuck in my two remaining brain cells.) Hilarity ensues, so check out the screenshots.

When you finish with that, perhaps you can help me with some questions. You see, I really don’t spend much time travelling in homophobic circles, so I’m probably not up to snuff on current terminology. Is the word “homosexual” somehow perceived to be more perjorative than “gay” these days? I’m trying to picture how some of those conversations must go.

“Oh my GOD! Is your son a Homosexual?!?”

“No, no… not at all! He’s just gay.”

I hope Tyson’s family doesn’t rely on that site for all their news clippings to hang up in their son’s trophy room at home. What next? Reruns on the cartoon channel?

“Flintstones, meet them Flintstones… we’ll have a homosexual old tiiiiiiime!”