Funny thing about censorship. It goes by many names, wears many masks.

Behind all of these guises, however, lies one ineluctable truth: Whether you call it censorship, the act always involves a decision made by a person or a group of people who think they know more about what's good for you -- or good for your children or good for society as a whole -- than you do.

When Ozzfest hits Six Flags Darien Lake Performing Arts Center on Monday, Marilyn Manson will be staying on the bus. And though the official line from Six Flags Darien Lake seems straightforward enough ("Contractual agreement gives us the right to restrict artists from performing in our concert venue. We decided to pass on the Marilyn Manson performance."), the implications are far more sinister than anything Manson has conjured up for his "Golden Age of Grotesque" tour. (It should be noted here that Manson has performed in Buffalo several times in recent years without incident.)

Since no one from Six Flags Darien Lake will offer any insight beyond this prepared statement, we may never know why the venue thinks it's OK for, say, Korn and Disturbed to perform but not Manson.

If the problem is song lyrics, for example, Manson is certainly no more offensive or potentially dangerous to his audience than either of the above-mentioned Ozzfest acts.