Jeffrey Bezos may have become Time's Man of the Year, but to one conservative pressure group the Amazon.com mastermind is currently anathema for what they call his refusal to stop Amazon from selling books which promote adult-child sex and bestiality.
"The most defenseless of God's creations, children, are fair game under Bezos's corporate philosophy," says the American Family Association's vice president, Tim Wildmon. "It is sad that Time magazine chose to honor a man who leads a company with no moral compass.
Wildmon says Amazon's general manager Carl Gish, when AFA questioned him about selling books on bestiality and father-daughter incest, replied Amazon's mission isn't to be a censor. "It is to provide selection," Gish was quoted as answering. "(T)hose books are out there, and there are people who think like that out there, and it's their prerogative."
What triggered AFA's wrath was discovering, in November, that Amazon offerings included The Horseman: Obsessions of a Zoophile, Dearest Pet: On Bestiality, and Father-Daughter Incest. But Wildmon says Amazon stood fast on refusing to discontinue the books, quoting Amazon public relations manager Emily Glassman as saying, simply, "It's a question of selection."
"(We) say these types of materials are bad business for any company," Wildmon says, "and that the 'question of selection' applies to consumers of online bookstores, too. Americans have no tolerance for sexual perversion and child abuse, or for those who advocate it."
