Note to the religious right: auto-replace is not your friend

Note to the religious right: auto-replace is not your friend

Auto-correct can be a very helpful feature of any word-processing program. But when conservatives use it, they run the risk of embarrassing themselves.

Some far-right sites that subscribe to the Associated Press feed, for example, will use auto-correct to change "Democratic Party" to "Democrat Party." [..]

But the American Family Association's OneNewsNow website takes the phenomenon one step further with its AP articles. The far-right fundamentalist group replaces the word "gay" in the articles with the word "homosexual." I'm not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. [..]

The problem, of course, is that "gay" does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported this morning

Tyson Homosexual easily won his semifinal for the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials and seemed to save something for the final later Sunday. His wind-aided 9.85 seconds was a fairly cut-and-dry performance compared to what happened a day earlier. On Saturday, Homosexual misjudged the finish in his opening heat and had to scramble to finish fourth, then in his quarterfinal a couple of hours later, ran 9.77 to break the American record that had stood since 1999. […] Homosexual didn't get off to a particularly strong start in the first semifinal, but by the halfway mark he had established a comfortable lead. He slowed somewhat over the final 10 meters-nothing like the way-too-soon complete shutdown that almost cost him Saturday. Asked how he felt, Homosexual said: "A little fatigued."

Now, the AFA has since changed the article back to the way it was originally written by the AP reporter, but don't worry, Kyle got the screen-grab before the AFA edited the piece back.