I’m not sure you even read my post very thoughtfully...Ann Coulter is not gay, as far as I know, and certainly was not going to speak to Farah’s crowd to convince them to embrace gays...the fact that he intends to continue her column but used this cancellation as publicity shows his insincerity and more importantly, that his actions are all about the almighty dollar!
I think I did read your post thoughtfully. I just disagree with your conclusions. Hopefully that’s still allowed.
First, publicity can have many motives, so I’m willing to take Farah at face value when he says the big deal was the messaging. Her appearance before a group that is dedicated to undermining conservative values can be read, and will be read, by many as an endorsement, whether it really is or not. To then give her a leadership role in a conference specifically designed to give the opposite message could lead to a more confused and less powerful message. She created the problem. Farah had to address it. That means he had to explain it, publically, especially because he wanted to be fair in distinguishing between her role as a generally conservative commentator and her potential role as a thought leader for a focused “conservative values” group. Sort of like the accountant you would hire to keep the books straight versus the executive you would hire to give the company its sense of direction. Farah, and many of us, pictured Coulter in the visionary role, but this episode with Homocon has, for many of us, diminished our view of her judgment as a conservative leader.
I’ve seen this in other, less high-profile settings. A professor in law school who had many wonderful qualities, but who was off-mission in some key areas, was let go, just for being off-mission. Coulter’s “sentence” was much lighter by comparison.
Second, I never said she was gay. Nor has anybody doing serious analysis of the situation said that. My original reaction to your comment was triggered by you calling Farah’s decision “censorship.” You chose that word, not me. And my response was, and remains, that it is not censorship for Farah to have the freedom to choose whoever he wants to put out a strong message of conservative values. He’s a private entity, and he has a constitutional right to freely associate with whomsoever he desires. If he had a monopoly on Internet speech, that would be different, and private but quasi-monopolistic entities like Google do present a more difficult problem. But anybody can set up a news website (or a conservative values conference) and spew whatever they like, with whomever they like. That’s not censorship. That’s just freedom doing its thing.