Papers Drop Coulter Column

At least three newspapers have dropped conservative pundit Ann Coulter's column following her use of an anti-gay slur in a speech last week.

The papers – The Oakland Press of Michigan; The Mountain Press of Sevierville, Tenn.; and the Lancaster New Era of Pennsylvania – pulled Coulter's column after she used the word "faggot" to describe Democratic presidential contender John Edwards during an address to a conservative group in Washington.

"She's really gone into the realm of wanting to be, whatever, a personality, a celebrity flame-thrower," Glenn Gilbert, executive editor of The Oakland Press told The Associated Press on Thursday.

"The reason we wanted her, we wanted a conservative columnist. She's obviously betrayed conservatives," Gilbert said.

Announcing his newspaper's decision, Stan Voit, editor of the Mountain Press, wrote: "We will not continue to publish the columns of someone who uses people as a punch line to get a cheap laugh and who so freely uses an offensive term to describe another human being."

Coulter was quoted last week during a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington as saying: "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I - so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."

The remarks were denounced by Democrats and Republicans alike. All three leading Republican presidential contenders – Sen. John McCain, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney – quickly distanced themselves from Coulter.

Coulter defended her comments during an appearance on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes."

"It isn't offensive to gays. It has nothing to do with gays," Coulter said. "It's a schoolyard taunt, meaning wuss. And unless you're telling me that John Edwards is gay, it was not applied to a gay person."

The Human Rights Campaign, a national gay-rights organization, has launched a campaign to get other Coulter newspaper clients to drop her column, the trade publication Editor & Publisher reported on its Web site.

A spokeswoman for Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes Coulter's columns, said the service has no plans to stop offering Coulter's columns, which she said are distributed to about 100 clients.