Dire Straits hit `Money...` banned

`Money For Nothing` is labeled as offensive to gays and lesbians.

London: `Dire Straits` cult hit number `Money For Nothing` has been banned from Canadian airwaves, 26 years after it`s release, for being "extremely offensive" to gays and lesbians.

The song written by Mark Knopfler, contains a derogatory slang and can now no longer be played in its original form, reported Daily Mail online. Any station that wants to play the song will have to edit it or disguise the word, according to a ruling by the Canadian Broadcasts Standards Council. The decision came after a listener complained that the broadcast of unedited version of the song, which mentions the word three times, was extremely offensive to gay, lesbian and bisexual people. The council concluded that the word when used to describe a homosexual man, is a word "that, even if entirely or marginally acceptable in earlier days, is no longer so." "The societal values at issue a quarter century later have shifted and the broadcast of the song in 2010 must reflect those values, rather than those of 1985," said the Council in a press statement. PTI