We have removed the wildly popular “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!” by Father John Whiteford, published on July 1, at the request of our host this morning. Father Whiteford had contacted WordPress to allege copyright infringement on our part under the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

WordPress invited us to submit a DMCA Counter Notice claiming fair use. We very well might have prevailed: we republished Father Whiteford’s article from his blog as part of an ongoing conversation (see our Father John Whiteford’s Latest Fit of Hysteria: A Preliminary Response) and gave full attribution. We quickly deemed it not worth the bother to file a Counter Notice.

Instead, you may read Father Whiteford’s piece—in which he concludes by  repeating the tiresome and frankly absurd juxtaposition of committed same-sex couples with pedophiles—at the source.

We apologize to our readers for the inconvenience, and to Father Whiteford for any emotional hardship that we may have inadvertently caused him.

Orthodoxy in Dialogue remains committed to calling out Orthodox clerics who misuse the power and authority of their position to harm Orthodox children, teens, and adults who identify somewhere along the LGBTQI spectrum. If this incident can help Father Whiteford and others like him to understand the immeasurable emotional hardship caused to these persons and their families by their rhetoric, then it will have served a useful purpose. 

Orthodoxy in Dialogue seeks to promote the free exchange of ideas by offering a wide range of perspectives on an unlimited variety of topics. Our decision to publish implies neither our agreement nor disagreement with an author, in whole or in part.

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