ONLINE STORES PULL ANTI-GAY CALENDAR

Amazon.com has removed an offensive “I’m Not Gay, I’m Just a Sissy” calendar from its site following complaints from around the world.

The calendar, by Christian cartoonist Joe King, includes illustrations that mock gays and lesbians.

One features the American folk hero Paul Revere riding on horseback while shouting “The sodomites are coming! The sodomites are coming!”

BarnesandNoble.com was the first online retailer to stop selling the calendar and was quickly followed by Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com.

One commentator on the UK Amazon site said: “How on earth did this bigoted piece of hate ever get printed, let alone accepted for sale on Amazon!”

America’s Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) was one of the first groups to condemn the calendar.

“This calendar has no business being sold and supported by reputable retailers,” said Herndon Graddick, Senior Director of Programs and Communications at GLAAD.

“King has a right to his opinions, however anti-gay or anti-transgender they may be, but retailers also have the right to decide that they don’t want to support hateful and dehumanising content like this.”

Any suggestion that the calendar was not intended to be offensive and is simply humorous satire was negated by vitriolic Facebook comments by the cartoonist on Facebook, following the removal of his calendar.

“Hoo-we! Hell hath no fury like a he/she scorned… The telephone tree of tantrums is lit up like a Las Vegas marquee for “Boy-Lesque” today with hate mail, threats of boycott and even the risk of Jesus spitting on me for my ‘Sissy’ calendar…”

He then threw in an uniformed and bigoted statement about HIV/AIDS for good measure: “… The ‘truth’ is that AIDS is an ‘elective’ disease. It STOPS the day guys quit sticking it to each other. And for the tragedy of women and children infected… THAT stops the day their gay husbands and fathers stop cheating on them. Anyone need MORE education, science or funding to understand THAT?”