If not a form letter then it's probably a minor modification of one.  I doubt that they really know what to say when confronted with their own bigotry.  I can't imagine their policies “ensure the effectiveness of Google ads“.  I think it is more likely the “Google Ethics Committee“ believed they were being ethical when they banned firearms.  And once a decision is made and they defend it against critics it is hard for people to admit they were wrong.  It takes very strong character to be able to do that.  Google, as a company, is probably not much above average in character.  It's just a battle we have to keep fighting one day at a time while showing all the character we can.

Subject: Re: [#17065471] Google AdSense Account Status   
From: "Google AdSense"   
Date: Mon, December 20, 2004 22:21  (GMT)
To: Joe Huffman 

Hello Joe,

Thank you for your email. I understand that you are disappointed with our
current policies. We apologize for the inconvenience. However, we have
certain policies in place that we believe will help ensure the
effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as our advertisers.

We review all publishers according to our Terms and Conditions and program
policies, and we reserve the right to decline certain websites. As we
grow, we may find that we are able to expand our program to more web
publishers with a wider variety of web content.

Thank you for your feedback, and please know that we are working hard to
make the AdSense program available to as many web publishers as we can.

Please feel free to reply to this email if you have additional questions
or concerns.

Sincerely,

Emily
The Google AdSense Team

----------------
AdSense publishers now have the option to display image ads, in addition
to text ads, through AdSense. Go to
https://www.google.com/adsense/faq#imageads to learn more.