(This is also the place for the people currently on my blogroll to promote your own blog and tell what it’s about. What can I say? I like introducing friends.)

I was skeptical. I mean, really? A company that, as Gawker.com points out, named a gay British author’s book their novel of the year.? It would be a reversal, but I guess it could happen.

So I typed it in Snopes and didn’t find anything, yet found two news stories from news outlets I hadn’t heard of before. Stymied, I went to bed only to wake up and find it had exploded like whoa.

Fact: This indeed happened.
Fact: A company representative cited policy before the company said it was a technical glitch.

I’ve also heard a theory that Internet trolls, such as the big blowup Strikethrough on LJ, where communities with anything having to do with underage children were threatened, were to blame here, too: http://tehdely.livejournal.com/88823.html

That also sounds plausible.

We’ll see how all this plays out. I find it rather damning that a representative said policy was to blame…before Amazon blamed a technical glitch.

If you want to put in your say, e-mail Amazon or sign the petition.

People obviously have very passionate issues on either side of the homosexuality debate, but part of being an American is being exposed to things that challenge us. Stripping the sales rankings of books, such as Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series, is just plain censorship. Let’s hope Amazon does the right thing.

Update: Someone on LiveJournal claimed credit for it here: http://community.livejournal.com/brutal_honesty/3168992.html , but the claim turned out to be false.