Elton John and his newborn son have been branded too offensive for young shoppers at a grocery store in Arkansas.
Elton John and his husband of five years David Furnish proudly showed off their baby son Zachary Jackson Levi Furnish John — who was born via a surrogate mother on Christmas Day — on the covers of Us Weekly and OK! Magazine this month. But the image, the sale of which benefitted various charities, has sparked an international uproar after Harps Grocers south of the Mason-Dixon Line where caught using a plastic magazine cover to obscure the family portrait.
Jennifer Huddleston was at the Harps near her home in Mountain Home, Arkansas when she saw The Johns’ cover of Us Weekly covered with a “Family Shield” placard. The shields are usually placed over adult magazines with racy covers.
The woman said she was “shocked and horrified” at the placard which read: “To protect young Harps shoppers.” Huddleston then Tweeted a photograph of the censored mag cover to GLBTQ activists like Anderson Cooper, Kathy Griffin, Ellen DeGeneres, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the ACLU, and a number of other gay rights activists with the following message:
“This was taken at my local grocery store…They are saying they need to keep children from seeing it, because it is a gay family. can you help bring attention to this?”
The image immediately sparked controversy across the blogosphere. Harps has since removed the placards and issued two apologetic messages on its website, but the damage is already done.
Harps CEO Roger Collins says he’s “sorry that these events caused misunderstandings.”
“The decision to cover the magazine was not a corporate decision but one made by a store employee at one of our 65 stores. Harps has never and would never discriminate,” he added.
“In this case our store manager received some complaints and, as has been our custom, placed the shield over the cover of the magazine,” Kim Eskew, president of Harps Food Stores Inc., chimed in. “When we began receiving complaints at our corporate office, we reivewed the magazine in question, removed the shield and are selling the magazine in all our locations today without any shield.”
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