If you read any gay blog, you're bound to have heard that Amazon.com has stripped the vast majority of LGBT-related books of their sales rankings. Here's the story from author Craig Seymour, who has been complaining since February about this issue. (Incidentally, I'll have a review of his book up soon -- I just finished reading it. In the meantime, buy it -- it's wonderful -- but not from Amazon!!!):

In the last couple of days, people have been blogging about how Amazon has been labeling gay and lesbian books as "adult" and removing the books from their search engine. I'm glad the issue is FINALLY getting attention (see links below), because I have been complaining about it since February.

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."

The LA Times has picked it up. For instance, of the 20 or so Queer Studies books sitting on my coffee table, here are some of the texts that have been stripped of their rankings:

Michael Warner's, "The Trouble with Normal"
Michael Warner's edited collection, "Fear of a Queer Planet"
Michel Foucault's "History of Sexuality: Volume One" (Curiously, not volumes two or three)
Steven Seidman's edited collection, "Queer Theory / Sociology"
David Halperin's "What Do Gay Men Want?"
Heather Love's "Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer Politics"
D'Emilio and Freedman's "Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America"
Allan Berube's "Coming Out Under Fire"
Kennedy and Davis' "Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold."

As Craig also notes:

Memoirs by gay porn stars Blue Blake (Out of the Blue: Confessions of an Unlikely Porn Star) and Bobby Blake (My Life in Porn: The Bobby Blake Story) didn't have a sales ranking, but memoirs by straight porn stars Ron Jeremy (Ron Jeremy: The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz) and Jenna Jameson (How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale) did. Clearly, there seemed to be a double-standard.

Just a few examples. Based on this evidence. I advise three things:

1. Sign the petition opposing this policy.
2. Contact Amazon and demand they repeal the policy.
3. Boycott Amazon.com until they repeal this blatantly homophobic censorship policy.