Posted on 09/26/2002 4:23:03 PM PDT by repub32
could hardly believe what I was reading on the WorldNetDaily Web site: Amazon.com is accused of "contributing to the potential rape and molestation of children" by offering a book on adult-on-child sexual relationships.
But upon visiting the Amazon.com site to investigate for myself, I found that the book is indeed there. It is titled, "Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers." In fact, on the Amazon.com site, self-described boy lovers and pedophiles offer positive reviews of the book, saying it "attempt[s] to shed the positive aspects of a healthy boy/male relationship."
Yeah, it's creepy, all right. But there's more.
"By explaining what 'pedophiles' really are," writes one pedophile, "it may help parents to understand that there may actually be benefits to such relationships."
This is absolutely shameful. These fiends are attempting to convince parents that there is no harm if they should target their children to satisfy their sinister urges.
Amazon.com should immediately ban this dangerous book (and any similar books) from its Web site and apologize for allowing such material to be there in the first place.
Thankfully, the organization that uncovered the book's availability at Amazon.com - the Escondido, Calif.-based United States Justice Foundation - has written a letter to Amazon.com President Jeffrey Bezos, saying that offering the book amounts to "an unfair and unethical business practice." The USJF has given Amazon 30 days to withdraw the book or face "protracted litigation."
As reported by WorldNetDaily, the book states: "Men who sexually pursue young boys are not monsters, but sincere, concerned, loving human beings who simply have a sexual orientation that is neither understood nor accepted by most others."
As a veteran pastor, I can report that I have worked with families that have been shattered because an adult has sexually abused a child. One need look no further than the recent Catholic Church fiasco to see the emotional anguish that is brought on by the abuse by an adult of a child. Years later, the deep scars of the abuse remain.
And yet Amazon's initial response to this controversy has been to defend the sale of the dreadful book, unbelievably saying freedom of expression must be protected.
LOCK THEM UP AND THROW AWAY THE KEY
My good friend, Bedford, Virginia Sheriff Mike Brown, who spearheads an undercover operation to apprehend child molesters, has recounted to me how destructive these individuals are. Many pedophiles (called "travelers") will voyage across the country in hopes of meeting up with a youngster they have befriended on the Internet. Upon their meeting, these gullible and often lonely children, thinking they have discovered a friend, eventually realize they have been duped by an individual who is fixated on sexually misusing them.
Thankfully, Sheriff Brown's team routinely poses as teenagers in Internet chat rooms in order to meet these pedophiles. These undercover agents, after convincing the pedophiles that they are forlorn teens or pre-teens, frequently set up meetings with these pedophiles who are subsequently arrested and prosecuted.
These are the types of individuals Amazon.com is promoting and protecting by offering this dangerous book.
I am encouraging people to send an e-mail to Amazon.com (feedback@amazon.com) in order to complain about the availability of "Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers" on their Web site.
After telling a couple of friends about this outrage today, these friends told me they were going to immediately send e-mails to Amazon to say they would not order again from the company until it ceased offering the book. This is the type of action Amazon.com (and any other retail company) will understand.
Please write to Amazon.com today (feedback@amazon.com) to considerately request that they immediately drop the book "Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers."
Amazon should be ashamed! Frankly they should be prosectured!
Prosecuted!!!
Amazon sells books by the millions. That is their business. They are not "promoting and protecting" anyone by doing so. If you have an issue it is with the authors and the buyers, not with Amazon.
Buy a copy of Unintended Consequences instead. Not only will you get a lot more out of it - but you'll find yourself studying it over and over.
This - not the Turner Diaries - is the book Washington fears. BATF even hassled its author's estranged wife.
Using your logic a person who sells sex with a underage person shouldn't be prosecuted either. Hell, since there is a market for snuff flicks I guess I could sell it as well and you wouldn't care if I did.
I'm a registered customer there but let them know with vigah that I won't be purchasing any books or cassettes till they cease being enablers of pedophiles.
Leni
No, you have not used my logic. Sex with an underaged person is illegal. A book about pedophiles is not. Should Amazon be required to screen all of the thousands of *legal* books they have available because they may offend someone?
The point is, don't go off on Amazon for selling a book. Refute the ideas the book advances.
If the ideas the book advances are illegal then they are endorsing crime.
Ah, pity Amazon - stuck with an evil book. Well, there are a few points to consider.
(1) The book is endorsing crime. Amazon is offering the book for sale. Amazon is not endorsing a crime. However, see next point.
(2) "Soldier of Fortune" magazine got in trouble a few years ago - they got sued bigtime by the parents and teen-age son of a woman killed by someone who advertised for his services in their magazine. Now, if someone were to buy this book from Amazon, commit the crime, and then complain that he got the ideas from the book...then Amazon might be sued by the victims parents. The cases are not identical - but they may have some potential liability. On the other hand, there are a lot of books out there that recommend illegal activities - violent overthrow of the government, how to build bombs - lots of nasty stuff. It can be argued that selling a book that endorses crime, and carrying ads for a criminal offering services, is sufficiently different that they are not connected. This is how lawyers get rich.
(3) Amazon carries a ton of books. They don't have somebody actually READ all the books they carry. Unless you can make a case to their legal department, they are unlikely to do anything.
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