What bugs me even more is the "reviews" for these kind of books arent reviews at all but just people's opinions on the subject of the book. They should be removing all reviews that are just supporting one side or the other of the topic of the book. People want to actually read real reviews of the book itself not read someones opinion of the topic

Maybe the disturbed folks behind the National Organization for Marriage had something to do with this.

Nothing in that Amazon explanation posted by Mark Probst says that Amazon policy considers all gay-themed books to be "adult" in nature. I can see how that can be implied, but I can also just as easily assume that the CSR who responded really had no idea why the book was de-ranked or was misinformed herself and offered him the closest explanation she could find.

This whole situation is too illogical and out of blue for me to be outraged about yet. Until Amazon releases something saying that they consider all books mentioning homosexuality to be adult items and not suitable for ranking, I'm chalking this up to some kind of disastrous glitch.

@Gorphlog:
While they are at it, amazon.com should remove the reviews of the product that only talk about how the product arrived to them in good condition.

I was browsing through the list of books so far and when I scrolled through the Non-Fiction my jaw just about hit the floor.

Examples:
A book about official policy of Gays in the military?
A book chronicling gay rights?
A DICTIONARY OF HOMOPHOBIA? (Too bad it was printed b4 this)...

Who cares. I obviously don't.

Feminist books are also being removed left and right, so it looks like it extends further than LGBT related discrimination on the part of whoever really made the decision to make these changes.

Isn't Nicolosi the four-times-married shrink whose son is gay?

Amazon will cave. I'm curious as to why they thought it'd be a good idea in the first place. Sure, some users would request that when they search for "Barenaked Ladies" they get the band, not smut rags and strap-ons. In the bookstore I work at customers are always complaining about books with covers showing lots of skin, or with titles like "Cosmo's Top Sex Positions". But of course there'd be a backlash against any type of censoring, especially on the web. Maybe they should have an optional filter for 'sexual content', like Google Images does.

As far as LGBT books getting censored, I'm sure it had to do with customers being more likely to tag them with sexual content ('oral', 'anal' tags for instance)labels than they are with hetero books. Biased, sure, but I'm sure that's something their filtering algorithm took into account.

@AnF-DuDe: oh, i don't know, anyone who hopes that the united states will someday treat everyone as equals?

If this really happened the way it seems to have, I don't understand why they thought they'd get away with it.

@supercereal: Gasp! Not NOM NOM NOM ;A;

@supercereal: WE GOT A CLASS 4 TORNADO OF BIGOTRY TEARING THROUGH THIS COUNTRY. You are not alone!

@AnF-DuDe: The appropriate thing to do if you don't care about a post is to scroll on by, unless, of course, you are a troll.

@Yoko Broke Up The Beatles: I was going to say the same things. Some reviews are clearly a rant, but many occupy the gray area between rant and critique. In any case, you can just vote down a bad review and skip it. Whats more annoying are those twats who think Amazon is eBay and leave 'reviews' that say, "Super FAST shipping! Will do business again. A+++!!!"

The worst part about that page is all the 5-star ratings from self-hating homosexuals. It's like something straight out of "Prayers for Bobby."

I'm sure by now you've seen the fantastic tag-bombing of the Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality:

Not what the author had in mind.

Been awhile since I laughed that much.

"Preventing Homosexuality"? Like how?

1. Remove all pink things from the home. Yes, this means slicing off your tongue! What's more important- your tongue or your son's sexuality ?

2. Same goes for any penis shaped objects. Many a boy has been tempted into perversion by corndogs!

3. Seal your son's buttocks with Super Glue. Purity takes precedence over pooping!

4. If alll else fails, give your son a sex change. Now you have a straight daughter! Kudos!

Finally, someone else who can read books upside down!

Seriously Amazon, WTF? If you're going to de-list books from search ranking, don't start with GLBT books. Start with "straight" books, THEN get onto the other ones. Otherwise you get backlash like this. If you "censor" searches for "straight" material, no one will complain.

Disclosure: Child, friend, etc of many GL's

Oh noes. A company doing something about a lifestyle they consider morally wrong. Lets all stand up and force them to agree with us!

I'm interested to see what their response is as well. I spend a fair amount of coin with them over a given year and if this nonsense continues I'll close my account and shop elsewhere.

@AnF-DuDe: We're incredibly sorry. In the future we'll try to accommodate your needs more thoughtfully, because this site was created just for you. Shall we change the name of the site to AnF-DuDerist in the future?

@Radi0logy: buying books is a lifestyle now? I didn't know reading was immoral, but then again, sometimes you can learn things while reading, so better safe then sorry.

I'm really disappointed in them doing this, and intend to stop shopping there until this is resolved. I'm going to try and get other people to not shop there either.

@Dafrety: Hang on, they're trying to do a Google bomb? I thought that stuff didn't work anymore.

@Radi0logy: Heh, I think this is a step in the right direction :)

@Dafrety: And I intend to shop there MORE as a result!

@supercereal:

@Radi0logy: oh noes! Another company I (and others who are offended by this) can stop supporting.

@GuinevereRucker: That would be very funny, assuming you would do show to show support for anti-gay causes. This whole thing is a glitch, according to Amazon, and they will probably fix it tomorrow and it will back back to how it was before.

@Anne Hawley: LOL at that being labeled "gay porn" and "gay erotica"

@AnF-DuDe: So they should focus more on stories that a narcissistic person who works in a mall(partly b/c of his looks) would like/relate too? Hrmmm, that's a pretty slim market to aim for. How's about if you don't like the story, don't comment/ask a question without a "?"? Kay?

/rant

@FuryOfFirestorm: 5. Remove Jesus Light Switch:

@GuinevereRucker: is there some reason you hate gay people?

I'm not gay, but this looks like pandering to the religious right, and I'm offended.

On the other hand, I wonder what'd happen if the people offended by this would demand that Amazon remove right-wing propaganda.

@Anne Hawley: HAHAHA thank you so much. Read the first few pages...by this guy's standards, my brothers and I were clear-cut cases of raging homosexuality in our toddler years. I owned a Tonka truck and my oldest brother tried on my mother's clip-on earrings and even (GASP!) insisted on wearing them in public one time.

A glitch yah right. Report for your pink star.No wait we want your money to. Ah we love god ah atheists are good ah teens yah teens. The strawberries are gone theres a key a key I say the strawberries. Oh hell We are closing our business as we cannot please all of the people all of the time. Stupid stupid stupid advertising/marketing droid now loses job. LOL

@GuinevereRucker: You made your point with your anti-gay post further up. Need you open yourself to flaming (ha, pun intended!) twice in one day?

@ameyer: Probably not. The people who are pissed off are reacting to obvious discrimination using the term "adult" for so very many titles, some of which are right wing propaganda. As far as I'm concerned, I demand equal exposure for all titles across all genres, not the banning of some wing-nut's latest book. I may have nothing at nice to say about such subjects, but people have the right to find a book if they search for it.

it's jesus weekend. that's why.

@katstermonster: lol same here...appearently beacuse i'm not verry interested in fighting... and up untill recently (yeah I'm in highschool) I wasnt verry athletic I'm a clear cut case homosexuality! apperently most of my teammates are too according to this quack!

@katstermonster: Flame away, I ain't scared of varmints!

@Gorphlog: I'm wondering if they will dare to censor or remove their Occult listings, since they have no problem blacklisting Feminist and Gay titles. Hopefully, they will get their sh-t together and no one will make me get my flying monkeys!

Hurray for Amazon.ca then, they haven't delisted anything. Yet.

@katieoh: I really wish people would get this straight (no pun intended). It's one thing to think a gay lifestyle is wrong and immoral. It's quite another to hate a person for being gay. These are two SEPARATE things, got it?

So if you're going to hate me, do it for the correct reason please :) I do not hate gay people. I would even go so far as to say I love gay people. I hate the lifestyle and the act.

I can't stand when people get these two things confused. If you're going to argue with me, let's at least clarify what we're arguing about.

@GuinevereRucker: ... but someone who identifies themselves partially based on their lifestyle considers it of importance, yes? so you hate that part of them, then.

apples, apples.

@Ashley Albin: several people I know only noticed it when they went looking for Jessica Valenti's books and saw where they were. I thought it was just a glitch until I saw the same thing happened with other books.

@Radi0logy: First of all, pay attention to what the actual article is about. Amazon didn't stop carrying or selling anything. They just made it harder to find. Also, it's happening to other genres besides LGBT (though LGBT seems hardest hit), so I sincerely doubt Amazon.com considers any of those genres morally wrong. Money is their bottom line, and it's a huge corporation. They don't have a particular corporate stance on anything save what's good for making them money.

And if you think that Amazon considers being gay wrong and won't sell things that pertain to gays, you should check out the gay interest movie section, hubba hubba. Your whole point is moot.

@GuinevereRucker: That's pretty much like saying that you don't hate Jewish people, you hate the Jewish lifestyle and the act of going to Synagogue.

But this really isn't a website for dissecting the fine points of bigotry.