This can’t bode well for Liberty Counsel’s lawsuit against New York’s Marriage Equality Act: the group apparently finds the phrase “same-sex marriage” too steamy to print on its own website. In the headline of a press release today about the New York lawsuit, the group made sure to censor the word “sex” in the phrase “same-sex marriage”:
A look through LC’s press release archives shows that this is not the first time the group has censored the phrase in its own press releases.
Religious Right groups, including Liberty Counsel, routinely struggle with the vocabulary of gay rights, often opting for the liberal use of scare quotes to distance themselves from the ideas of equality. LC’s Matt Barber likes to put “gay,” “rights” and “progressive” in scare quotes, such as when he rants about “the ‘gay’ deathstyle.” The Family Research Council, meanwhile, prefers to put its scare quotes around “marriage” and “wedding.”
Then again, Liberty Counsel’s self-censorship might just be an attempt to get around the tough Internet filters that groups like FRC and Focus on the Family recommend their members use.
