Regret the Error

The American Family Association’s OneNewsNow site has a standard practice of using the word “homosexual”* instead of “gay” when it comes to, well, gay people. They even set up a filter to automatically make the change.

As has been noted by sites such as Boing Boing and PageOneQ, among others, this practice didn’t serve ONN well when a sprinter named Tyson Gay made news at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials. He suddenly became Tyson Homosexual when the site’s filter got a hold of an AP story. Boing Boing has a screen grab of the hilarity:

But perhaps the best part of the story was this:

Asked how he felt, Homosexual said: ‘A little fatigued.’

The original story is online here. It has been fixed, though no correction or editor’s note was added.

Thanks Richard and Paul!

Update July 2: And the Sun-Sentinel had a Gay-related photo error:

An item in the Daily Digest on Page 1A of Monday’s edition incorrectly identified 100-meter runner Tyson Gay. Gay is shown at right in the photograph. Runner Walter Dix is at left. Link

*Correction June 30: In the first sentence of this post, the word “homophobic” was used instead of “homosexual.” It has been corrected. Thanks, Howard and Julia!

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