In Brief

Staff Reports

Christian Cartoonist's 2012 Calender Deemed Homophobic Removed From Online Sales By Amazon and Barnes & Noble

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON -- American Christian cartoonist Joe King’s calendar, I’m Not Gay, I’m Just a Sissy," which drew a firestorm of criticism after the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) along with a significant number of bloggers publicly denounced the calender and its sale through internet retail giants Amazon and Barnes & Noble-- both of whom have since pulled the calender from their sales offerings. The controversy began earlier this week when prominent New York based gay blogger Andy Towle published an article detailing the contents of King's calender which includes jokes about AIDS and gay lifestyles in a negative stereotyping of gay men.

Herndon Graddick, Senior Director of Programs and Communications for GLAAD, in an e-mail said; "This calendar has no business being sold and supported by reputable retailers. 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 dehumanizing content like this.”

Barnes and Noble has since yanked the calendar for sale on its website, and a spokesperson for the company told GLAAD it has never been made available in stores. Amazon has also removed the item.

The calendar which is dedicated to the memory of the US revolutionary hero and to gay rights opponent Anita Bryant and which promises "12 months of sexual confusion" has drawn staunch criticism for what many some deemed homophobic humor and imagery, including one illustration which appears to poke fun at the HIV/AIDS crisis. Another cartoon is a parody of Paul Revere, showing the Revolutionary War hero on horseback shouting, "The sodomites are coming! The sodomites are coming!"

Few in the LGBT community are laughing about the calendar and as the fury built, its author hit back at critics.

King, a member of the Christian Comic Art Society, took to his Facebook page writing in defense of his work. "I feel like David vs. the gay Goliath," King writes in one post. In another, he adds, "All the hysteria is coming from those nice folks who haven't bothered to actually purchase and read my collection. Stranger still -- these are REPRINTS of nationally distributed work several years old. No outcry then."

Towle along with other bloggers were quick to point out this post in which King writes: 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?

The cartoonist,responding angrily to complaints raised by blogger Andy Towle commented saying: “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.”

Thursday morning, King told his Facebook followers: “Aint the first time I’ve been banned – won’t be the last. I was born with a loud mouth and an itchy shirt, bury me next to the Baptist. [sic]“