Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from Macworld UK. Visit Macworld UK’s blog page for the latest Mac news from across the Atlantic.

After some controversy and complaints, Apple has reportedly pulled an application from the iTunes App Store after claims it was anti-gay.

Highlighted by The Huffington Post and others last week due to its reportedly objectionable content, the Manhattan Declaration iPhone application has been quietly removed sometime in the last few days.

Apple's decision may have been influenced by an online petition at Change.org calling for the application to be removed.

The petition organisers asked those unhappy with the initial decision to contact Apple's CEO Steve Jobs, signing a statement: "Please remove anti-LGBT, anti-women application from iTunes Store."

"Apple has always been among the most progressive companies and earned a 100 percent rating from the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, and yet, the company has approved application that is offensive to Americans who support equality and free choice," the petition notes.

"The Manhattan Declaration application exists to collect signatures on a website which espouses hateful and divisive language, the very kind of language I hope the iTunes Store will not want to help disseminate. Despite the store rating the application 4+ ("no objectionable material), I can assure you that the application does in fact contain lots of objectionable material."

Apple is known to be a defender of gay rights. As The Huffington Post adds, in 2008 Apple donated $100,000 to oppose Proposition 8, California legislation that ultimately led to a ban on gay marriage.

[Via GoodAsYou.org]

This story, "Apple pulls anti-gay app from iTunes Store" was originally published by Macworld U.K. .