My book, Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians has been de-ranked by Amazon. Apparently, Amazon has decided that gay and lesbian books are “offensive” and are “adult” material and they don’t want them turning up in searches and offending anyone who might innocently be searching for books and one of our filthy, outrageous, titles should pop up.
Amazon has been called on this — and over at Twitter.com the #amazonfail group is alive and calling for Amazon’s head over this — and Amazon has responded by calling it a “glitch” that is going to be fixed.
That “glitch” comment, by the way, came after an admission from an Amazon PR flak that removing the sales rankings from gay and lesbian books was intentional because they were “adult” titles and would be considered offensive.
But, if you search for sex toys on Amazon’s site — these “adult” devices still have their sales rankings:
Remarked all-around swell poet Mark Doty across the disorganized sprawl of Facebook, “If you go on Amazon and type in butt plug in the search window, you’ll see a number of them for sale, with sales ranking attached! So, it’s okay to rank butt plugs but not books?” Alas yes. One only finds erogenous things as butt plugs (and whips too!) when specifically searching them out.
Whosoever has been an Amazon associate for years now — but if this situation is not rectified, and soon, we will be disassociating from them and moving on to another bookstore.
In the meantime, I suggest you head over to Indiebound.org and check out their selection. It’s time to get serious about supporting our independent bookstores instead of the homophobic box stores and online stores.
Update: Some books have had their sales ranks restored, but Bulletproof Faith is not one of them. We haven’t won this battle yet.
Founder of Motley Mystic and the Jubilee! Circle interfaith spiritual community In Columbia, S.C., Candace Chellew (she/her) is the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians (Jossey-Bass, 2008). Founder and Editor Emeritus of Whosoever, she earned her masters of theological studies at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology, was ordained by Gentle Spirit Christian Church in December 2003, and trained as a spiritual director through the Omega Point program of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta. She is also a musician and animal lover.