I don't know if anyone else here has ever read and/or participated in the numerous ESPN sports boards. There are and have always been certain words that are "bleeped" out (they use ***). Used to be the usual suspects: the F word and variations, slang for excrement, etc. Got funny at times. Someone mentioned stealing a sucker from his daughter's Halloweed candy bag and it came out as ****er. In a discussion about security in the wake of 9/11, someone talked about making airplane cockpits more secure. ESPN wrote it as ****pit.
But the "new" and most definitely not improved boards now includes "gay" as a word that will be bleeped out. Whatever the context.
I don't know if ESPN thinks the 27 million GLBT Americans (plus the folks in other countries, it is the WORLD wide web, after all) should all be killed or just censored out of existence.
But if anyone knows an email or phone # to complain to, I sure will.

They do that on the various team boards for all Major League Baseball teams. Utterly moronic.

I totally agree that "gay" shouldn't be included in the list of bleeped words, and I support your effort to change it. However, I don't think they did it because they think "gay" is a dirty word, but rather to keep people from using it as such -- to deter the use of the word in a derogatory manner. For example people calling an athlete "gay" just because they don't like him for reasons that have nothing to do with whether or not he/she really is gay. Message boards sometimes get out of control because of immature stuff like that. It's a way for them to keep some control of the board.

This reminded me of a message board I stumbled across -- the Charles Atlas board, at charlesatlas.com. On the boards, they automatically change "ass" to "buttocks", even if it's part of another word. Thus, someone might write about their aerobics clbuttocks being taught by an buttocksistant instructor. It's quite humorous. (The board is also funny because it's a bunch of total geeks who think "dynamic tension" is far superior to weightlifting, and some of them can't figure out why they aren't adding "mbuttocks" to their physique.)

So do they edit out the word "homosexual"?

I think it would appear as ho*****ual. (It's the "mo sex" part they're afraid of.)

Tsk. That's the best part.

I think homosexual would appear as ****sexual. Homo is banned even when it's something like homo sapiens.
I am certainly aware that some people use gay as an epithet for anything stupid, silly, ineffectual or just plain disliked. But the bleeping covers all usage. For example, someone commented that Barry Zito's hair was getting very long. A regular on the A's board replied that while he's not gay he does think Zito is really good looking. I don't find such usage objectionable but it still came out that he's not *** but finds Zito good looking.
BTW, a troll on the A's board uses the user name a'sarefags and that is OK with ESPN. So fag can be used but gay can't! Go figure.

Let me get this straight - I am now ***?

Even us straight guys like "mo sex". "Mo sex, mo often" is a GOOOOOD thing.

But that still implies that being called "gay" is a bad thing? And to avoid the "bad" usage of the word, should they censor the many more "good" uses of that word? There are some people whose first or last name is Gay... should their name be banned because some people want to post something absurd like "Mike Piazza is gay?" wink

When I started a thread on the official Blue Jays message board (on MLB.com), I found that I couldn't mention that the Blue Jays themselves were hosting Pride Day, an event for the "gay & lesbian community." Instead, I had to write the "g ay & lesbian community" ("lesbian" is not offensive, apparently). I think I also mentioned that Sharon Gless, from "Queer As Folk" was going to throw out the first pitch, but again had to write "q ueer."

The problem, obviously, is not words like "gay" or "queer," but how people use them. If there are enforced rules, then objectional and offensive use of these words can be editted, and inofensive ones can be left intact.

Euphamisms, misspellings, and ****-ed words are just stupid.

Thank goodness we are free to speak our minds on Outsports!

...even when you use it at the Philadelphia Free Library thanks to the ACLU.

The MLB boards used to bleep any word that starts with an S and ends with a T, so discussing Mike Schmidt was always a problem. Haven't posted there in a while, so I don't know if this policy is still in effect.