my two cents on this whole predicament:
1 - i think that there should be no censorship on any signature, provided it's legal (which also sits well with rahvin's "no porn" policy: eventhough this is largely disregarded on the internet, in many places it is not legal for minors to watch porn, and minors can use UM). as a consequence, images depicting gay men in any kind of behavior that is legal for everyone to see should not be banned. misanthrope's sig shows two men kissing, which is not pornography. so if i were in charge i would let it stay, especially since the men are quite good-looking.
2 - it is funny how there was no fuss at all when arch had some scenes from a lesbian porn film in his signature. i seem to remember that, even if the advertised movie was NC-17, the actual shots (no pun intended, especially because it was lesbian after all) were as mild as the ones we are discussing now: women kissing, if i recall correctly. the fact that men kissing cause bans and women kissing do not irks me to no end.
3 - this notwithstanding, i am not in charge; misanthrope is not in charge; nobody of us is in charge. i concur with fevermist's point: it is childish to perform any sort of act with the sole finality of irritating deron or anyone else just because they are in a position of authority. i might not like his views on gays or gay-related imagery, but he's still the person who runs this particular internet company which we mostly enjoy for free. those of you who contributed money to UM donated, as opposed to acquiring stock: you don't own a part of UM, you don't sit on a board, you don't cast a vote on any aspect of how the company is ran. if you don't like it, go away, exactly as you might do if, say, you strongly disagree with a store's labor policy.
4 - just for the sake of clarity, i am not saying that people in a position of authority should not be questioned, publicly or privately: freedom of speech is paramount, but the principle of freedom of speech has nothing to do with what you can and can't do in a locale, media space etc which is privately owned by someone different than you. freedom of speech would be in danger if you couldn't, say, build your own site in defense of gay rights, or even build your own site in order to criticize deron (provided, again, that you do it by legal means). the fact that deron lets you stay even if you attacked him right, left and center is an act of tolerance on his part, not a right you have.
5 - i am being so hard on you because i'm positive that your point is most definitely not the defense of gay rights.
you want to piss people off, along with some people from SoT, which you call full of sense of humor while i might want to call it full of shit. this attitude is childish, annoying and i normally want to beat up the people who do it. i guess that a ban is just a high-tech version of kicking your ass. you're being arrogant and whiny, and like all people who are arrogant and whiny you assume you have rights which you don't have (see above).
you can, of course, accuse me of lying and deconstruct my thoughts anytime, because i can't prove anything about your intentions, but i know enough about activism to know that if you really wanted to foster a positive, tolerant attitude towards homosexuals you would have followed a different route.
i can give you some pointers: start a thread discussing discriminations against gay people, or recount episodes of violence you know of in order to raise the level of awareness about the danger of gay-bashers, or try to organize some form of constructive information on homosexuality, maybe involving the few people who have declared they are gay on one of the threads of this very board.
if you were interested in gay rights, you would have contributed to a related thread with facts that counter the foolish concept (reported in the SoT forum as a part of an article about government-sponsored sex-ed programs in the USA) that half of gay male teenagers in America have AIDS.
but no, you probably don't really care about gay rights to the point of getting involved. you just want to stick your tongue at someone you don't like for a cheap ego trip. my answer is: go fuck yourself and shut up.
6 - by the way, you shouldn't assume that i particularly like deron or i want to defend him. i don't know anything about him, if he is a homophobe i most definitely do not like his ideas about sexual orientation, and i don't approve of the way he handled this situation (he should have banned misanthrope and lived with the consequences: iron fist politics require consistency, and if you know that a specific move causes you to lose profits you should tap into alternative sources of income, not back out). i'm just trying to say that if you're out to irritate people you shouldn't call the PC police when someone kicks you in the face.
Yeah exactly
