Amazon Fails Gay Readers And Writers, Reclassifies GLBTQ Books As “Adult”
“Amazon: Building Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Companyâ€?
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Shocking. As the news spread throughout the Internet yesterday, especially on social networking sites like Twitter, the anger and hostility rose quickly. It appears Amazon.com, “The world’s largest bookstore”, without notice has been removing LGBTQ publications from search results. At first it seemed reasonable to assume when the news broke that it was a computer glitch, or some over-zealous new employee who got a bit too rambunctious. But now, reports are coming in that the delisting has been going on since February. Via craigspoplife:
“Here’s my story: I’m the author of a memoir, All I Could Bare: My Life in the Strip Clubs of Gay Washington, D.C.
(Atria/Simon & Schuster), which is about my journey from grad student to stripper to entertainment journalist to college professor. (I’m currently Associate Professor of Journalism at Northern Illinois University.) Like many authors, I frequently check my sales status on Amazon, so imagine my shock, back in early February when the “Amazon.com Sales Rank” completely disappeared from the Product Details of my book. The book also disappeared from the search listings, so that if a customer looked up “All I Could Bare by Craig Seymour” on the Amazon home page, nothing came up. Of course, I immediately sent emails to Amazon asking about this situation. I also placed several phone calls. But I could never get a straight answer, until February 25, when I received an email stating that “the sales rank was not displayed for the following reasons: The ISBN #1416542051 was classified as an Adult product.” “
Well-respected journalists and authors, among them Andrew Sullivan, have been affected:
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“This has to be one of the weirdest and least defensible policy changes imaginable. Mein Kampf is fine. Jackie Collins is fine. But books about gay subjects are now “adult” on Amazon and so not included on best seller lists or rankings. Sure enough, “Virtually Normal” and “Love Undetectable” have been de-listed and stripped of customer sales rankings. Jackie Collins’ “Married Lovers” hasn’t. My books contain discussions of Aquinas and Freud and Foucault and Burke. I’m puzzled as to why those authors are more “adult” than Collins’ adulterous couplings.”
Mark R. Probst writes:
“As I am a publisher and have an Amazon Advantage account through which I supply Amazon with my books, I had a special way to contact them. 24 hours later I had a response: In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature. Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us. Best regards, Ashlyn D Member Services Amazon.com Advantage”
Amazon’s insufficient response reportedly has been this, by Patty Smith, Director of Amazon’s Corporate Communications:
“There was a glitch in our systems and it’s being fixed.”
But at 3:20 PM today, a search for “homosexuality” netted these results (see image here):
A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality by Joseph Nicolosi and Linda Ames Nicolosi Homosexuality (general topic fiction, non-fiction) You Don’t Have to Be Gay: Hope and Freedom for Males Struggling With Homosexuality or for Those Who Know of Someone Who Is by Jeff Konrad For The Bible Tells Me So ~ Gene Robinson, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Imogene Robinson
To be fair, Amnazon is a business. A very successful business. One wonders why they would, especially in these challenging times, attempt to limit access to products that, especially after events of the past few weeks, must be sufficiently lucrative to them. There don’t seem to be previous episodes of anti-LGBTQ attempts from Amazon. The question seems open, despite their claims of being a “glitch”? Why? If it was a glitch, why did it take them so long to realize it, especially since they were notified months ago? Personally, I’m in favor of giving them the benefit of the doubt, because any other explanation seems amazingly ridiculous from a business sense, and from an historical perspective. But they do get an “F” for how they’ve responded to this situation. A friend on Twitter forwarded me an email he received from Amazon, after requesting they close his account. Their response:
“Hello, Thanks for contacting us. We recently discovered a glitch in our systems and it’s being fixed. “Although I understand that you requested your account be closed, I sincerely hope that my efforts to correct this misunderstanding have been satisfactory. However, if you still wish to close your account, please visit the following link to submit your request…” “Best regards, Mohammed A. Amazon.com We’re Building Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company”
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Despite President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that there is “no inflation,” consumer prices jumped in June, rising to an annual rate of 2.7%—the highest level in months. Economists cite the President’s tariffs, now beginning to take effect, along with rising costs for food, energy, and rent.
The Consumer Price Index increase “is slightly higher than expected and is up from an annual pace of 2.4 percent in May,” according to The New York Times.
ABC News called it “a notable surge of price increases as President Trump’s tariff policy took hold.”
“Worsening inflation poses a political challenge for President Donald Trump, who promised during last year’s presidential campaign to immediately lower costs,” the Associated Press reported Tuesday, noting that inflation “rose last month to its highest level since February as President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs push up the cost of a range of goods.”
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As far back as August of 2024, Trump vowed, “Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods.”
Days later, he added, “Under my administration, we will be slashing energy and electricity prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months.”
Fast forward to just one day before Election Day: “A vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper,” he promised.
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“Tariffs are starting to raise prices,” observed Heather Long, a Washington Post columnist and the chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union.
“This is just the beginning,” she added. “But we need to watch food closely. Increases there are really tough on middle class and moderate-income households.”
Long pointed to several categories of imports and listed their price jumps:
“Linens +5.9%, Oranges +4.7%, Olives +4.4%, Cookware +4%, Audio equipment +2.9%, Major appliances +2.4%, Coffee +2.2%, Sports equipment +1.8%, Toys +1.4%,” while noting that eggs are down 10.8 percent.
Center for American Progress President Neera Tanden, a former top Biden administration official, wrote simply, “Thanks for raising our cost of living with your inane tariffs @realDonaldTrump.”
U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) noted, “Trump and Republicans are hurting our economy and increasing your costs.”
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Image via Reuters
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“Medicaid is bankrupting almost every state,” Secretary Rollins claimed in remarks on Monday (video below).
With the Republicans gutting over $1 trillion in federal Medicaid funds, and approximately $200 billion in SNAP funds, states face either picking up that massive shortfall or cutting some programs, benefits, or users.
Medicaid is “taking between 30, 40, 45, 50 percent of the state budgets, and has for a really long time, for those of us who come from state policy, we know this very, very well,” Rollins continued. State funds for Medicaid (not including federal matching funds) account for less than 20 percent of state budgets, overall, according to the Pew Research Center.
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Secretary Rollins previously served as a policy director for Texas Governor Rick Perry and led the right-wing Texas Public Policy Foundation. More recently, she headed the America First Policy Institute, a conservative think tank dedicated to advancing President Trump’s first post-presidency agenda.
Rollins decried what she says is the number one purchase using SNAP funds: “sugary drinks and junk food.”
“Frankly, we have to make a change,” she insisted.
“So there is a lot of wholesale across the government that we can do, but there’s also a recognition that a lot of these communities that are part of the Medicaid program, they don’t always have access to healthy food,” Rollins continued, not mentioning the billions the BBB Act gutted from both.
Rollins insisted the federal government has to do “a better job through our nutrition programs, through our partnerships, et cetera, of ensuring that those communities have access to healthy foods.”
“So on the back end, we have programs that are not bankrupting our government.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Brooke Rollins: “Medicaid is bankrupting almost every state … we have to do a better job through our nutrition programs of ensuring that those communities have access to health foods, so on the backend we have programs that are not bankrupting our government.” pic.twitter.com/WyaQp3C9Hy
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 14, 2025
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Image via Reuters
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The meeting was attended by about 60 CEOs and business leaders who have donated to faith-based causes, in an attempt to persuade them to invest in the White House Faith Office, according to Fox News.
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Trump was “expected to explain why the White House Faith Office is so important to his agenda,” and “encourage business leaders to help the Trump administration, specifically on programs concerning foster care and adoption, fatherhood initiatives, poverty alleviation, substance abuse and prisoner reentry.”
But the President also explained (video below) “one thing” about Democrats: “they have bad policy, they’re evil people in many ways, but they stick together,” he claimed.
Trump warned that if Republicans don’t stand together “and make the economy strong…you’re gonna literally have perhaps a depression, where you people so rich, so beautiful, so nice to look at, will be totally busted. And let’s see how long your wife stays with you, your beautiful — she’ll stay with you for about three weeks and she’ll say, ‘Darling, I can’t take you anymore. I can’t take it anymore, darling, I’m leaving you’.”
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The Freedom From Religion Foundation denounced the meeting’s agenda.
“Trump is again blurring the line between church and state,” FFRF wrote. “A president shouldn’t be rewarding CEOs for promoting religion or using public office to advance a ‘faith-centered’ agenda. Government must serve all Americans — not just the religious.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Trump on Democrats during his speech to a faith group: “They’re evil people in many ways.” pic.twitter.com/qhxgccA7Mj
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 14, 2025
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