![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Nature shows the way
Jan. 28th, 2010 09:09 amNot only is homosexuality entirely natural, as evidenced by penguins, wolves, seagulls, and more, but so is divorce as evidenced by supposedly ever-faithful swans.
Want your head to explode?
Nov. 10th, 2009 05:43 pmRead "An Economic Case Against Homosexuality" by self-proclaimed conservative librarian Bert Chapman. Among the head explodey:
* The AIDS epidemic is caused by homosexuals worldwide, and heterosexual promiscuity in Africa (note: Africa exclusively).
* Homosexuals are criminals, as evidenced by the high rate of homosexual rape in prison.
* Domestic partner benefits and other forms of progress for homosexuals has come at the expense of us poor heterosexuals and this is ruining the economy.
* The AIDS epidemic is caused by homosexuals worldwide, and heterosexual promiscuity in Africa (note: Africa exclusively).
* Homosexuals are criminals, as evidenced by the high rate of homosexual rape in prison.
* Domestic partner benefits and other forms of progress for homosexuals has come at the expense of us poor heterosexuals and this is ruining the economy.
Amazon.com delists books on homosexuality
Apr. 12th, 2009 09:08 pmTime to boycott Amazon.com . They've decided to delist factual and useful books on homosexuality from their internal search engine, calling them "adult themed," so that "ex-gay" books show up on searches before other books on homosexuality. For example, the book "Heather Has Two Mommies" does exist on Amazon.com in both the original edition and the 10th anniversary edition, however it does not show up when you search all of Amazon on the title and only the 10th anniversary edition shows when you search on the title under Books only. You also will not find the book's sales rank anywhere on either edition's page (do a Find on the page for "rank" or "sales rank"), as opposed to on the page for another random book.
More details and about what's going on, including an explanation of how the sales rank is being misrepresented or deleted entirely, are on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rosefox's blog linky linky here. And just to clarify, Amazon does say it is their own choice to filter on "adult themes", not the choice of some database they are buying into.
Edit: I have submitted the following letter (identifying information redacted) to Amazon.com's Customer Service online, and will be looking up their mailing address and sending another copy on school stationary. Feel free to copy or modify for your own letter.
Edit: According to Publisher's Weekly, Amazon is backpedaling and claiming it's all just a glitch, but they do not appear to be making any efforts to fix said glitch. Searching on Heather Has Two Mommies still doesn't turn up the book, the book itself still has no rank listed, and a site-wide search on "homosexuality" still turns up ex-gay propaganda bullshit. I also haven't seen anything about Amazon's comment elsewhere - like on Amazon. I'll start listening to Amazon's comments when they start actually doing something about them.
Edit: Amazon is emailing everyone who emailed them to say it's an error.
From Amazon:
I clicked on "No, it's not resolved" and wrote:
More details and about what's going on, including an explanation of how the sales rank is being misrepresented or deleted entirely, are on
rosefox's blog linky linky here. And just to clarify, Amazon does say it is their own choice to filter on "adult themes", not the choice of some database they are buying into.Edit: I have submitted the following letter (identifying information redacted) to Amazon.com's Customer Service online, and will be looking up their mailing address and sending another copy on school stationary. Feel free to copy or modify for your own letter.
I recently heard about Amazon's policy to derank books on homosexuality and remove them from the search results. I am very disappointed in this policy and will no longer be purchasing from Amazon, unless this policy is revoked. In addition, my influence extends beyond my own dollar, as I am informing my friends and family of this new hateful policy.
I am also a faculty at a community college (subject, school, and location redacted). Every year I have hundreds of students, and in the past I have recommend that they can purchase their textbooks for cheaper than the college bookstore by buying them on Amazon.com. Some of the goals of a college education is for students to broaden their horizons, and to learn to see the world from different points of view. In order to achieve this goal, we must all have access to as much information as possible. Amazon's policy to selectively blacklist certain topics that one portion of the population finds offensive is in direct opposition to the goals of a college education. Therefore I cannot in good conscience recommend Amazon to my college students as a source for textbooks. Until Amazon changes this policy, I will no longer be recommending Amazon to my students but instead will recommend competitors BN.com and Powells.com .
Edit: According to Publisher's Weekly, Amazon is backpedaling and claiming it's all just a glitch, but they do not appear to be making any efforts to fix said glitch. Searching on Heather Has Two Mommies still doesn't turn up the book, the book itself still has no rank listed, and a site-wide search on "homosexuality" still turns up ex-gay propaganda bullshit. I also haven't seen anything about Amazon's comment elsewhere - like on Amazon. I'll start listening to Amazon's comments when they start actually doing something about them.
Edit: Amazon is emailing everyone who emailed them to say it's an error.
From Amazon:
Amazon.com Customer Service to me
2:05 AM (4 hours ago)
Hello,
Thanks for contacting us. We recently discovered a glitch in our systems and it's being fixed.
Thanks again for contacting us. We hope to see you again soon.
Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:
If yes, click here:
If not, click here:
Please note: this e-mail was sent from an address that cannot accept incoming e-mail.
To contact us about an unrelated issue, please visit the Help section of our web site.
Best regards,
Mehul Damera
Amazon.com
We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company
[link removed, I don't want to give them traffic right now]
I clicked on "No, it's not resolved" and wrote:
Sending an email to say "we're working on fixing this problem" without providing any evidence of said work is frustrating. I hope that I am informed when this is actually fixed, because it is not fixed as of yet and I still intend to boycott Amazon until it is.
Also, you have lost a lot of reputation from this supposed glitch. I do not see how this could be just a glitch, and I feel that you simply are not owning up to a deliberate bias that turned out to cost the company money, so instead you're pretending it never happened. Fess up, get a press release out, and spend a week featuring books on homosexuality on the front page: that would build good will in the LGBT/ally community and show that it really was in error.
Homophobia meme
Jul. 22nd, 2008 02:22 pmMemeage:
I think it'd be better for people who ARE homophobic to be seeing this. Interestingly, apparently this meme is circulating via email among teens currently. Very cool.
To all those who think Homophobia is wrong and want to fight for a better future for our gay and lesbian friends, please repost this:
I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.
I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.
I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.
We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.
I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.
I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.
I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.
I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.
We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.
I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.
I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.
I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.
I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.
I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.
I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I did not have to always deal with society hating me.
I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don’t believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.
I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.
I am the person who is afraid of telling his loving Christian parents he loves another male.
Re-post this if you believe homophobia is wrong. Please do your part to end it.
I think it'd be better for people who ARE homophobic to be seeing this. Interestingly, apparently this meme is circulating via email among teens currently. Very cool.
#1 - I hate how the article that should've been about the risky self-defense of a child and his dog against a hawk, instead ends up praising nature-bashing. It's not like it's the hawk's fault that daschund puppies are the most plentiful form of prey in the area.
#2 -
I'm glad to hear they're planning on voting upon the inalienable right to force single parents to give up their children to married couples who don't want children. It's not right for public policy to deprive every single person of a family consisting of a husband, a wife, 2.5 children, a half a dog, and a third of a cat. I mean, 170,000 people in MA clearly think it's important that we have the whole state vote on exactly how every single family should look and behave, civil rights be damned. [WHDH-TV Channel 7 Boston]
#2 -
There is no substitute for having both a mother and father; it takes a mother and a father to create a child and every child has the right to be raised by a mother and a father. No child should be deprived of these inalienable rights as a matter of public policy. --VoteOnMarriage.org
I'm glad to hear they're planning on voting upon the inalienable right to force single parents to give up their children to married couples who don't want children. It's not right for public policy to deprive every single person of a family consisting of a husband, a wife, 2.5 children, a half a dog, and a third of a cat. I mean, 170,000 people in MA clearly think it's important that we have the whole state vote on exactly how every single family should look and behave, civil rights be damned. [WHDH-TV Channel 7 Boston]
protesting war deaths
Dec. 2nd, 2006 12:15 pmI really don't get these freaks who go around protesting at funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq. Their claim is that the soldiers die as punishment from God for the nation's approval of homosexuality. Well folks, I don't know if you noticed, but the US military are AGAINST homosexuality, and in fact have a specific homophobic policy in place. Why in the world would God kill the military? He should be killing us liberals if that's his agenda. Makes no sense.
