Until an inquiry by WorldNetDaily yesterday, American retail giant Wal-Mart – known for promotion of family values – sold a book on its website published by the country’s most visible advocate of pedophilia.
Wal-Mart, which refuses to sell CDs requiring a Parental Advisory Label, offered through Walmart.com the North American Man-Boy Love Association’s title “Varieties of Man/Boy Love,” by Mark Pascal.
 WalMart.com’s NAMBLA book |
But after WorldNetDaily sought comment, WalMart.com spokeswoman Cynthia Lin said the company is taking the book off its website.
“Given that we have 500,000 books on the site, on occasion there may be a book that is inappropriate that we haven’t seen,” she said.
Lin did not elaborate on the company’s screening process but said, “This is one, unfortunately, that we did carry that was inappropriate.”
In 1999, after protests, Amazon.com pulled the same title from its website.
Walmart.com said on the web page for the 124-page book – described by NAMBLA as “a compilation of essays on the nature of man/boy love” – that it was out of stock but normally can be shipped out in one business day.
Another pedophile title on Wal-Mart’s site is “Enchanted Boy,” published by Gay Men’s Press.
Prior to Wal-Mart’s decision yesterday, Richard Ackerman, a lawyer involved one year ago in a campaign to urge Amazon.com to stop selling a similar book, told WND he was preparing to take legal action against Wal-Mart if they did not remove the NAMBLA title.
He said he hoped Wal-Mart, a family-oriented business, would “disenfranchise itself from molestors” without the necessity of letters and litigation.
Ackerman is legal counsel for the California-based Pro-Family Law Center, a non-profit public interest firm.
A child protection group in Britain is criticizing Amazon.com for its sale of the book Ackerman targeted last year, “Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers,” by David L. Riegel.
As WorldNetDaily reported one year ago, Riegel’s book says men who become involved in sexual relationships with boys “are sincere, concerned, loving human beings who simply have – and were probably born with – a sexual orientation that is neither understood nor accepted by most others.”
 Amazon.com sells “boy lovers” book |
Amazon defended its sale of Riegel’s book, but said it dropped “Varieties of Man/Boy Love” because of its graphic images. The Seattle-based Internet retailer, insisting it did not censor what it sold, said Riegel’s book was not a “how to.”
A story yesterday by Britain’s Sky News, however, cited a child protection advocate who was angered by the book’s potential impact.
Liz Atkins, of the British-based National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, dismissed Amazon’s arguments, asserting “sexual relationships between an adult and children must never be viewed positively.”
“We know that sex offenders often look to justify their behavior, and any book that seeks to minimize the distressing and long term impact on children is unacceptable,” she said, according to Sky News.
WalMart.com Inc. was established in January 2000 in California’s Silicon Valley. It has a separate board of directors from Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., but said at the launch the company was expected to “further complement efforts to attract offline customers to the Internet via the trusted Wal-Mart brand.”
Rob Walton, chairman of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Lee Scott, vice-chairman and chief operating officer of Wal-Mart, had a majority interest in Walmart.com when it was founded.
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