“Pressure is mounting on Apple to rid its store of an Anti-Gay App. Over at the Huffington Post, Wayne Bessen writes that Exodus International, the largest Christian organization offering a ‘cure’ for homosexuality, is bragging that Apple gave it a 4+ rating, signifying the absence of ‘offensive content,'” Victoria Pynchon blogs for Forbes.
“I downloaded the Exodus App today to see whether it contained something akin to hate speech which has been variously defined as any communication which disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race or sexual orientation; or attacks or disparages a person or group of people based on their social or ethnic group,” Pynchon writes. “At the risk of putting myself at the center of a firestorm of disapproval, I have to say that what I viewed and read on the Exodus app was not hate speech but simply the expression of religious beliefs with which I, and many other people, disagree.”
Pynchon writes, “If the iPad and iPhone have become, by virtue of their app-lization, a version of the public square, we’d be better off letting the public decide whose ideas are more consistent with our national character and whose are not. Though the private sector is entitled to suppress speech and support any crazy idea it wants, we do ourselves a disservice when we exclude from the dialogue anyone who wants to contribute their ideas.
Much more in the full article here.