I feel faintly sick

[hils]

Take Amazon to task

I just did a search for 'homosexuality' on amazon.co.uk and the first three items that come up are 'Can Homosexuality Be Healed?', 'A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality' and 'Stories From The War On Homosexuality'

I don't know about the rest of you but I am not shopping with them again until they do something to resolve this

Edit: I have signed the petition and e mailed Amazon directly. It takes about 5 minutes to do both

Comments

[voldything.livejournal.com]

What? This all sounds like a horrible joke gone WORSE

[hils.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I had to actually go and check it myself before I would believe it. Now I am angry.

[supergee.livejournal.com]

I guess that isn't "adult content" because grown-ups wouldn't take it seriously.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe they will after this

[notsowise-sage.livejournal.com]

Apparently Amazon Customer Services are claiming they've been delisted because of "Customer complaints", every book referencing homosexuality? That's called discrimination, whether or not someone complains.

As is noted in that article, they're not delisting blood sports, heterosexual porn, animal fighting (of any type), and numerous other things that are going to cause offence.

The only people that would complain are the super goody two shoes Christian brigade (a minority of Christians in the world), so what's next? Other religions? Maybe popular entertainment shoes that feature non-Christian ideals, and behaviours.

I would boycott any shop that did this, barring an actual Christian bookshop, because it's damn right censorship, vile and horrendous censorship, which impacts the lives of the writers, the publishers (why publish books in these categories if a major seller won't even list them?), and the readers that need their community, or people who are confused and want a view of this side of life, oh and those who are neither homosexual, or confused, but just enjoy good reads, and different views on the world.

This makes me so bloody angry!

[hils.livejournal.com]

Yup! I am angry also. Thanks for bringing it to my attention

[soupyfirefly.livejournal.com]

That is REVOLTING. Think I will be mobilising our LGBT campaigns group tomorrow.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Good for you!

[tyffi.livejournal.com]

Quoting myself from a comment I left in emrinalexander's journal:

I'm not really surprised. After all, we're talking about a company that sold Nazi-T-Shirts, and their German branch is still selling books published by the NPD which is like the NSDAP - minus the S and the A.

Of course, that's a minor threat compared to homoerotic books that may pop up in the ranking system...

[hils.livejournal.com]

Really? I had no idea about that other stuff

[tyffi.livejournal.com]

Well, they stopped selling the Nazi-shirts, because apparently a few people didn't like it - I wonder why. Wouldn't everyone want to have an "I love Hitler"-shirt?

But, the NPD-proganda books are still being sold on amazon.de, because amazon doesn't believe in censorship, and as long those books aren't banned, they are free to sell them.

Well, as long as the money keeps coming in...

[hils.livejournal.com]

Urgh! I am starting to really hate them

[rebeccama.livejournal.com]

It just gets worse and worse the more I see. :(

[hils.livejournal.com]

It's not good. I'm really hoping that this will prompt them to change it

[hardticket.livejournal.com]

Add The Gay Kamasutra to that list and it is what you get from Amazon.ca.


Wtf?


Ok, Amazon in general has lost my business.

*goes to dust off my old chapters.ca account*

[hils.livejournal.com]

I'll be going back to going into actual bookshops I think

[notsowise-sage.livejournal.com]

Won't catch me in bookshops, same as DVD, and crystal shops - I spend toooooo much money.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Crystal shops? You don't strike me as the new-agey type

[notsowise-sage.livejournal.com]

I'm a former pagan, plus before that I was an amateur geologist, I have the full collection of the Treasure of the Earth magazine, and sample stones.

Oh and some of them are really pretty, some of them in the most weird colours, and other do cool things.

Rocks and crystals FTW!

[hils.livejournal.com]

Hee! I used to collect crystals when I was a teenager. No idea where they all are now, sadly

[mysticmoonstorm.livejournal.com]

Ok, now I'm curious - why former pagan?
(I ask because I keep going back and forth on whether I'm pagan or agnostic).

[notsowise-sage.livejournal.com]

I got into Paganism because I was studying religions, and certain things clicked, on the Celtic side of things, the whole idea of bards and such - and then I delved deeper, going through a more Hindu inspired path, and then the Celtic and Hindu became mixed with a far more ceremonial magic path (mostly Golden Dawn, but with some of Crowley's influence mixed in for good measure).

However, it was always study, and I came to realise though there were things I believed, I had no real belief for the religious side.

So, I settled back to what is most comfortable for me, an Athiest who studies, and is open to trying to understand religious thought, and practitioners. Within reason that is, I still find fluffies (of any religion) funny, rather than someone I could respect, and I have no time whatsoever for cults of the negative kind (though these days the word is only used to highlight the negative kind, or a movement within history).

Also Pagan politics sucks - I used to get embroiled in it, until I realised it wasn't worth it either.

So there you go - a biography of my life from late teens to now, in regards to religion.

[innae.livejournal.com]

Pagan politics DO suck. sigh.

[mysticmoonstorm.livejournal.com]

Cool, thanks! I'm always curious why people stay with religions or don't stay with religions. I grew up in a very Christian (Baptist - can't drink, dance, swear - everything is a sin) and I quickly figured out that wasn't for me. I started doing the pagan thing when I was 17 and although my beliefs still seem most closely related to Native American and Celtic Shamanism, I find myself much more agnostic than anything else.

And you're right, Pagan politics suck!

Thanks again for sharing. :)

[lexalicious70.livejournal.com]

Yeah, isn't that the SUCK?? I have shopped with them for years, but will not do so until they fix this blatantly homophobic practice. Good for you, hon!

[hils.livejournal.com]

I really hope everyone takes the time to sign the petition and e mail Amazon directly to complain. It only takes a few minutes

AMAZON and a return to the 50's

[valkyrie4clex.livejournal.com]

I just typed the same word -homosexuality- into the USA Amazon search. By the 3rd page of responses I was still getting books that were more about curing Homosexuality than anything else. "A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality"; "Can Homosexuality Be Healed?"; "Coming Out of Homosexuality: New Freedom for Men & Women" + " Homosexuality: The Use of Scientific Research in the Church's Moral Debate"; and "You Don't Have to Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling With Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is" were all in the 1st 15 responses.
These titles remind me of when I was first trying to find books that had gay characters in them. This was in the 60's, mind you. I had to read titles + look at the cover art on a book very carefully to look for clues that the content I was looking for might be in it. Perhaps a picture of 2 men and a woman on the cover but the man was actually looking at the other MAN with a soulful look- this was a hint that HERE there might be a story that contained "the love that dare not say its name"!. And,then after you found a book- unless it was actually porn, one of the gay characters would commit suicide or be killed and the other would see the light and go back to the straight life.
I am shocked and depressed that we seem to be going backwards instead of forwards in regards to making books about different lifestyles easier to find and access in this world of easier info sharing.
Does anyone know if this is actually a result of caving into pressure from certain groups (or a group) or the influence of a few people somewhere in Amazonia or just one person in a position of decision making deciding to go on some kind of crusade to protect people from themselves???

This isn't just depression - It means I'll have to look for somewhere else to get my books - and other items like my toaster oven, DVD's, etc. and i hate that too!!

Re: AMAZON and a return to the 50's

[hils.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. I've been a loyal customer with Amazon for years and I don't want to leave them but I have to until this gets sorted out

I have no idea if this has been caused by group pressure or something else

[jslayeruk.livejournal.com]

It gets worse.

But what hardly anyone is talking about (yet) is that books to do with disability and sexuality have had their rank stripped too.

Books like Tom Shakespeare et al's sociology text book "The Sexual Politics of Disability". "The Ultimate Guide to Sex and Disability" has also been de-ranked.

The story is starting to crop up in news articles all over the world, and most articles are citing Twitter. There have also been petitions set up protesting against Amazon's effective censorship of LGBT titles. But none of these mention that us crips are getting censored too.

If you tweet, do mention something about Amazon de-ranking books on disability and sexuality also. And make sure you use the hashtag "#amazonfail"

link

[hils.livejournal.com]

Urgh! I shall tweet this link now

[lickingbeads.livejournal.com]

I don't know whether it is a sign of me getting old and tired or just apathetic, but I can't even muster any indignation over this. You'd think being half lesbian I'd be right there with my war ax... IDK though, I've found lots of LGBT books on Amazon; it's cheaper than anything else, which makes me put practicality over politics where my own shopping is concerned. Furthermore, if books like "Can homosexuality be healed?" were banned, wouldn't that be a form of censorship also? People have a right to their speculations, don't they, even if they're being fundamentally idiotic.

Of course, it would be awesome if Amazon were to stop accepting such books into their selection - but business is business, eh?

[hils.livejournal.com]

That's not the point being made here. We're not saying that books like 'Can Homosexuality Be Healed?' are banned

What Amazon are doing is labelling up books that feature gay characters as 'adult content' so they don't come up when you do a general search. But books that are anti-homosexul or in fact any sort of heterosexual erotica is fine. All we want is for everything to be treated the same way and gay books not be 'hidden under the counter'

[innae.livejournal.com]

Just for curious I tried gay (and the list has gayporn, gaysex, gaydar) -- Gay porn came up with all sorts of stuff. Fascinating to me that the slang gets that, but the "proper" term gives you "homosexuality and the bible"

[hils.livejournal.com]

How interesting!

[bigmamag.livejournal.com]

Where is this petition? I saw this on my flist a lot and I want in on this shit.

[hils.livejournal.com]

Click on the link in this post and it's there