Let’s see, I need to sum this up now. The people running the conference first told B.J. not to come if she was not willing to use the term they preferred. Then they changed their minds and reinvited her; she declined. Next, their angry supporters blasted M. Greiner for accusing them of censorship, B.J. for telling anyone about it and demanding apologies for their being “wrong” and saying mean things about Joe Soll.

Jan you wrote the above and more and this is so sad to me because it's wrong and you are repeating more gossip. Were you there when "the people running the conference" and BJ spoke? Of course not.

This is not the way it went down. BJ was not asked to not use the word - all presenters were asked to be sensitive to the fact that some mothers found the word offensive and to use their judgement. That request (which was not a demand or even a requirement) was on both the call for proposals that all the presenters completed months before an a last minute email went out a week before the conference.

BJ took issue because she claimed she was partially responsible for coining the term and accused them of censoring. There's lots more to this story but quite honestly, I'm so appalled that you and your blogging partner continue to misrepresent this story.

I also realize you are referring to me as someone who threatened Karen and I most certainly did not. Asking someone to correct a gossipy, prejudiced version of a situation or story that they (like you) heard third and fourth hand is reasonable and appropriate.

For some reason you insist on blindly misrepresenting and defending your right to incorrectly report a story. Expressing your opinion if perfectly fine, but you've got most of the details wrong and my personal feeling is that is immoral.

I won't post here anymore because it is obvious to me that you are choosing to blindly follow the story presented to you by your fellow blogger. I can respect that but I would have hoped that you would have some integrity about being accurate in your assessment - especially when the real story was explained on several other blogs including Marleys.

Crossroads and Origins didn't suffer any ill effects from people like you who don't even know them continuing to bad rap. The conference was excellent and people such as Edward Albee, Ann Fessler and plenty of others understood the request made of them and they didn't accuse anyone of censoring or behave like insensitive little pouty children as did BJ. We all had a big laugh at how a few people tried so hard to malign Crossroads and it's generally agreed it's jealously of Joe.

This is not a threat against you Karen but I notice that you don't have much participation on this blog. You might wish to learn a lesson or two from even Marley and other blogs who continued on with the story that you continue to gossip about and allowed the truth to come out.

I would be uncomfortable even looking myself in the mirror if even after I'd been told the correct version of what happened and I continued to misrepresent. Good luck in establishing credibilty with this blog.

Penny

ps. this is not a threat or anger of any kind. and by the way, the only reason that I wrote to you about karen is that she erased all of my blog responses so that she could continue her smear campaign about someone she has a personal vendetta about. Sad. Very sad.