Amazon.com is selling subscriptions to the North American Man/Boy Love Association’s official magazine, a periodical entered as evidence in a lawsuit involving the murder of a 10-year-old boy.
Customers who discovered the pro-pedophile group’s NAMBLA Bulletin on the Internet retailer’s site in the past few days expressed shock.
 Cover from NAMBLA bulletin |
“How can you even THINK of offering such sick garbage as this on your site?!! This needs to be removed!!” one reviewer wrote on the page where the periodical is sold.
A spokesman for Amazon.com, Bill Curry, told WorldNetDaily he did not know how long the magazine has been sold on the site.
“It was removed some time ago, and we’re investigating how it got back up there,” he said.
Curry said the NAMBLA Bulletin will be removed once again, but he was unable to specify when.
The quarterly periodical, which includes articles and letters defending and reporting the sexual experiences of NAMBLA members, is sold on the group’s Germany-based website and through fringe outlets, such as a basement shop in Manhattan’s East Village, known for its counter-culture titles.
A member describes the NAMBLA Bulletin as “a nice collection of photos of cute boys (practically on every page.)”
The publication figures prominently in a $200-million federal lawsuit alleging NAMBLA incites members to “rape male children” and “serves as a conduit for an underground network of pedophiles in the U.S.” The group is being defended by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The suit was filed by the parents of Jeffrey Curley of East Cambridge, Mass., who was lured into a van by two NAMBLA members in 1997. The men attempted to rape the boy but he resisted. Christopher Jaynes, 25, and his homosexual lover, Salvatore Sicari, then smothered Curley to death with a gasoline-soaked rag and raped his corpse.
The NAMBLA Bulletin was mentioned in Jaynes’ diary, discovered by police.
Finding NAMBLA, Jaynes wrote, “was a turning point in discovery of myself.”
“NAMBLA’s Bulletin helped me to become aware of my own sexuality and acceptance of it,” he said.
A statement from the bulletin, as printed in the lawsuit, says, “Call it love, call it lust, call it whatever you want. We desire sex with boys, and boys, whether society is willing to admit it, desire sex with us.”
The Curleys’ lawsuit alleges after Jaynes joined NAMBLA in 1996, he “became obsessed with having sex with and raping young male children.”
“As a result of reading a NAMBLA bulletin, he came to cope with his feelings and his desires, and then he came to realize it’s OK to rape little boys, and that’s what he went and did,” said Lawrence Frisoli, attorney for the Curleys.
Evidence introduced in court included a NAMBLA publication found in Jaynes’ vehicle titled “The Survival Manual: The Man’s Guide to Staying Safe in Man/Boy Sexual Relationships.”
Police also discovered a manual published by NAMBLA called “Rape and Escape,” described by the plaintiffs as an explicit guide to luring children and then avoiding prosecution.
Shortly before the murder, Jaynes visited NAMBLA’s website from a Boston public library, according to testimony.
Jaynes was convicted of second-degree murder and kidnapping, with the possibility of parole in 15 years. Sicari is serving a life sentence for first-degree murder, with no possibility for parole.
A federal judge recently decided the Curleys’ lawsuit can go forward with a trial and also ruled against the ACLU, which wanted to impose a gag order on the case.
The ACLU, defending NAMBLA, argues the lawsuit is the same as if someone was killed due to the permissive attitude of sex, drugs and rock music, and then sued Rolling Stone magazine for creating a climate in which the murder was possible.
Familiar territory
Amazon is familiar with controversy surrounding NAMBLA publications.
In 1999, in response to an organized protest, the company dropped a book published by NAMBLA called “Varieties of Man/Boy Love.” However, it continues to sell a similar title, “Understanding Loved Boys and Boylovers,” by David L. Riegel, a retiree who operates a chat forum for pedophiles.
 Amazon.com sells “boy lovers” book. |
Amazon has stated it does not endorse “Understanding Boys and Boylovers,” but insists “people have the right to choose their own reading material.”
The bookseller says, “Our goal is to support freedom of expression and to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any title they might be seeking.”
Nevertheless, Amazon decided to drop “Varieties of Man/Boy Love,” pointing out it had an image on the cover that bordered on “kiddie porn.” The bookseller argued further that Riegel’s book, in contrast, is not a “how to.”
Amazon’s Curry said the problem with the NAMBLA Bulletin is periodicals cannot be reviewed like books.
“We don’t know what’s going to be in every issue,” he explained.
Last month, a WorldNetDaily inquiry into Wal-Mart’s sale of NAMBLA’s “Varieties of Man/Boy Love,” on its website prompted the retail giant to drop the title and others of a similar nature. WalMart.com spokeswoman Cynthia Lin said the book slipped through the company’s screening process, noting it sells more than 500,000 books.
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.”
Last month, a British child protection advocate expressed anger about the book’s potential impact.
Liz Atkins, of the 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 news reports.
‘Dedicated to child molestation’
Customer reviewers on Amazon.com called the NAMBLA Bulletin “one of the most foul documents ever printed … dedicated to child MOLESTATION AND ABUSE.”
“Shame on you Amazon for selling this perverse horror story,” the reviewer wrote. “Your company needs to be legally prosecuted for selling this filth.”
Law-enforcement agencies say they cannot do much about “written words,” emphasizing they deal mostly with trafficking in child pornography. The FBI and local agencies have been trying for years to find NAMBLA in violation of laws against the sexual exploitation of children, and a U.S. Senate committee concluded NAMBLA did not engage in criminal activity.
Another Amazon customer wrote: “I’ll not shop here while this company continues to offer such a sick, demented product. I have a young son, and the fact that you provide a product that helps, aids and abets abuse and worse of kids like him sickens me.”
NAMBLA’s website includes selected articles from the Bulletin from the past 20 years.
One article, criticizing “contemporary sexual morality,” argues for sexual relationships between teachers and students, noting how they were seen in a positive light in ancient Greek culture.
The Bulletin published a “letter from a 12-year-old” who commended NAMBLA as “true gay people.”
“They understand that gayness starts at a young age, too,” the writer said. “Love comes in all forms, so a relationship should not be deemed wrong unless it is provable that the sex act was unconsensual. I believe in a sexual revolution. To quote Che Guevera, ‘The true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.’ Keep up the good work, NAMBLA!”
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