Amazon Fail

Via Queerty:

If you do a search on Amazon.com for "homosexuality" right now the first title to appear is A Parents Guide to Preventing Homosexuality. That's because Amazon has removed all LGBT titles from it's rankings. That means gay books show up low in searches and do not appear in suggestions on the site. 

Gay books started disappearing last week. And when authors asked why their books couldn't be easily found, Amazon responded that it was their policy to limit access to adult material. That means the autobiography of porn star Ron Jeremy is acceptable for children but a piece of classic literature like E. M. Forster's Maurice is too "adult?"

Since outrage erupted across Twitter over the weekend Amazon has begun backpedalling. Apparently the delisting of gay books is the result of a glitch and not targeted censorship. From Queerty:

It's all a "glitch", says Amazon. After a weekend of being bombarded by emails organized by Twitter (we told you it was an important gay political tool!) under the hashtag #amazonfail, the world's largest online retailer of books is apologizing for de-ranking dozens of gay books by classifying them as "adult literature." Amazon responded to our requests for more information with a statement that it sent to other reporters:

"We recently discovered a glitch to our Amazon sales rank feature that is in the process of being fixed. We’re working to correct the problem as quickly as possible.”

Boycotts have been organized and are ongoing. Amazon has been eerily quiet about the whole thing and refused to provide further information about how this glitch happened. Their first response though was to indicate the "error" was the result of company policy not a glitch. Doesn't that make you think maybe they thought they could get away with silencing gay authors and only called it a glitch when it turned out they were wrong? We'll see how this plays out.

OK Teacher Fired for Laramie Project Project

Via PageOneQ:

Debra Taylor, 50, a teacher at Granfield High School was fired after showing her students the 2002 film The Laramie Project based on the murder of Matthew Shepard. 

According to an article in USA Today, it sounds like Taylor did everything right: she got permission from her principal before watching the movie and halted the project when her principal told her to do so. Taylor was fired after she and her students held a mock funeral for a canceled in-class project in which they filmed their own versions of scenes from the play. 

The next day, Taylor says, Superintendent Ed Turlington canceled the class. After she complained to a school board member, Turlington put her on paid leave and recommended that she be fired. The school board approved her resignation Friday.

Taylor says she was let go for complaining to the board member, but others say it was a result of the play's subject: homophobia. "They don't want something like this addressed in our community," says senior Matt Ebner, one of Taylor's former students.

[snip]

John Moyer, an attorney representing the district, says Taylor was dismissed not because she wanted to put on a play or because of the subject matter. "If someone is saying that adverse employment action is being taken against Ms. Taylor because of homosexuality, they're wrong."

Representatives of the school district, however, weren't quoted on exactly why she was fired. Their silence speaks volumes.