Bill Muehlenberg's article did not present a balanced point of view, in my opinion.
It seemed to be full of unsubstantiated - sweeping generalisations. Some of the comments that followed however were quite extraordinary in their - how shall I put it? - strong emotions?. I simply stopped reading them after a while. It's very difficult I would assume to know where to draw the line. Most of us believe in the freedom of speech but people who enjoy the rights of free speech have a duty to respect other people's rights. A person's freedom of speech is limited by the rights of others - for example their right to maintain their good reputation. Most democratic societies, put various limitations on what people may say. They prohibit certain types of speech that they believe might harm others. But drawing the line between dangerous and harmless speech can be extremely difficult - and often it is a matter of judgement.

“Dumb article” speaks?

Sacred cows stampede with fright?

Miraculous times!

Shintaro, in his post of Friday, 11 February 2011 at 7:57:48 PM, says:

"... Comments,
On the other hand,
Seem to be subjected to
Selective freedom"

On the following evidence, I would have to disagree.

I was beginning to think I had been a bit harsh in suggesting "the haiku art-form [Shintaro has] chosen can become little more than a cloak for quick cheap smart-arsed remarks destructive of the Forum in general" until I saw an item written by Brendan Bolger, published on the website 'SX'
( http://sxnews.gaynewsnetwork.com.au/news/scare-tactics-008393.html ) on Wednesday 9 February 2011. Bolger wrote:

"IBM and ANZ recently withdrew sponsorship
from the web site On Line Opinion following
a post that called for homosexuals to be murdered
in light of the same-sex marriage debate."

A comment posted by a 'Chrys Stevenson' on 10 February 2011 to that news item on the SX site identified OLO UserID 'Shintaro' as being the author of that claimed call to murder, with that comment given the bold text heading of "Online Opinion comment taken out of context".

SX poster Chrys Stevenson proceeded in the body of the comment to defend the allegedly offending post of Shintaro's made on OLO (see: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=11533#197140 ) on Wednesday, 2 February 2011 at 11:25:29 AM to the comments thread to the article 'An 'unthreatening' lunch with Tony Abbott', by Garry Wotherspoon, published on 27/1/2011.

Shintaro's allegedly offending post was separated by seven posts by other users from his preceeding post, which was thus off-screen and not visible without scrolling as part of the overall context. The allegedly offending post was:

"He had it coming
Gays should stay in the closet
Or be murdered"

Two more posts by other users separated the claimed offending post from the subsequent post referred to by Chrys Stevenson in defending Shintaro as having been misunderstood and taken out of context.

Its interesting to see the attempt to now put the focus upon comments and moderation, rather than OLO's publishing of Muehlenberg on 25 November 2010. How did Bolger get it so wrong? Haiku too brief?

Forrest Gumpp,

Well explained.

It does seem that this issue has now jumped the divide and is concentrating on moderation. And it is easy in hindsight to see where this misunderstanding occurred.
Following Shintaro's comments, it was clear that he was referring to the murder of Ugandan gay activist, David Cato, as that story was prominent of news services at the time. It was also clear that Shintaro was defending gay rights in holding up the murder as a shocking illustration of the results gay vilification in Uganda.
However, someone parachuting into the conversation and cherry picking Shintaro's comments, in their brief form and without reference to his line of argument, would have taken them at face value and made a judgment solely according to the words of the haiku and not the intended message.

Poirot,

I don't agree that this thread has "jumped a divide" to be about moderation at all. There has been some good discussion about freedom of speech which should continue despite the diversion.

Shouldn't Shintaro speak for himself though? You did well to read his mind at the outset and guess his broken link. However after 18 pages Shintaro has not raised a grievance about moderation and from a quick look at his postings I can't find any reason why he would be so concerned or have such a secondary agenda, especially in view of his start to this thread.

As a light-hearted suggestion given the misunderstandings arising from Shintaro's blurred posts - his sarcasm and inscrutability are too heavy for mere mortals) - perhaps a fellow Ninja could help (with apologies to Shintaro wherever he is),

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEMvHg_rdng

Whoops, I meant this one, but he is a funny fellow so no harm done. So again in good natured fun while we await Shintaro, who will have a simple explanation maybe,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXCHlyFLWZM&feature=related