Do we boycott Borders and Barnes & Noble?

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surfinpure

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I was searching for a Mother’s Day gift at Border’s bookstore this afternoon, and when I passed the magazine rack I saw an entire section of lewd magazines, including some pornography. I’ve seen this also at Barnes & Noble, and it makes me want to leave the store and never return.

Is it morally wrong to spend money in a bookstore that markets and sells pornography? Or anything like pornography?
 
surf(name removed by moderator)ure:
Is it morally wrong to spend money in a bookstore that markets and sells pornography? Or anything like pornography?
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No.

If that’s its main product line, then I might change my vote to Yes.

I’d have to go live in the woods like the Unibomber if I seriously decided not to do business with unethical companies.

Alan
 
It also struck me just now that the disciples once asked Jesus if they should pull up the weeds growing alongside the grain. Jesus said to let them grow together lest they pull up the grain along with the wheat; they will be separated at harvest.

I mention this because these bookstores are trees bearing both good and bad fruit. If the bad fruit is on display and up front, you might wish to convey your discomfort with the manager.

Alan
 
I boycott Barnes & Noble because when Palm Beach county got hit by a CAT 3 hurricane last summer, a security guard outside the store told several of us who had spent the last three days in a Red Cross shelter that his orders from the store were to have the police arrest us for loitering if we did not leave (I was there 20 minutes before the store opened).

Yes, there were some street people in the shelter. But we all looked down and out after catching cat naps on a concrete floor. Even showed the guard cash and said all I wanted was to buy something to read in the shelter while I waited to find out if I still had a house standing. Nope. Move on…or else.
 
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David_Paul:
I boycott Barnes & Noble because when Palm Beach county got hit by a CAT 3 hurricane last summer, a security guard outside the store told several of us who had spent the last three days in a Red Cross shelter that his orders from the store were to have the police arrest us for loitering if we did not leave (I was there 20 minutes before the store opened).

Yes, there were some street people in the shelter. But we all looked down and out after catching cat naps on a concrete floor. Even showed the guard cash and said all I wanted was to buy something to read in the shelter while I waited to find out if I still had a house standing. Nope. Move on…or else.
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OMG what a twit. Oh yeah, he was just doing his job. I wonder if those were standing orders, or did the store people sent him out there specifically to get rid of you?

In a case like that, I’d have been really tempted to let him call the police. By the time they got there, the store would have been open. I wonder what the police would have thought of the guard when they showed up – like they had nothing better to do about then – and found a guard had called them to come “handle” a situation where there were customers with cash trying to make a purchase!

In my younger days, I might have replied to this with vandalism to the store, or at the very minimum, “signing” their store with a P at night. Nowadays I am supposedly more Christian so I guess that would be out of the question?

Whew! Thanks for sharing this. It’s been days since I got really worked up over something, and it’s kind of fun. I think I’ll go into our local B&N and ask for the address of corporate and see if they will defend this sort of action. If they do, then I know several of those obnoxious people who forward every email that has a cause in it, and will be sure to start some stuff.

That is, unless I calm down before I get it done. The best weapon my enemies have is my own failure to strike while emotions are hot.

Alan
 
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AlanFromWichita:
That is, unless I calm down before I get it done. The best weapon my enemies have is my own failure to strike while emotions are hot.Alan
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LOL…exactly how I felt that day. The guard said he had orders from Barnes & Noble. The store is in City Place, West Palm Beach Fl across from the Convention Center (where the Red Cross had a shelter). That was the CAT 3. Two weeks earlier, we had a CAT 2. Both times everyone in the shelter thought our homes were gone. Mine is not supposed to take a CAT 1…lol. Had so much repairing and cleaning to do when I got home, never called the store. But did I ever want to.

The theory B&N was operating on I guess was we were bad for business. It is an upscale cutsy new town center. But there was no business. No traffic lights were working in the area. Everyone was hunkered down, assessing damage, buying ice and wondering when the power would be back on (I got mine 8 days later but I live a block from the Police station and a Hospital. Others waited up to two weeks).
 
This is a good question and I have thought about it many times before. I have come to the conclusion that we would be forced out of society if we tried to boycott every story or company that promotes or sells pornography and other immoral garbage. I mean think about it…every grocery store has magazines with half naked women on the cover, every video store rents dirty movies and has the pornographic movie covers on the rack for all to see. If you have cable your provider sells X rated movies and many of the other companies we do business with donate huge amounts of money in support of abortion. Your phone company sells phone sex through those 900#'s.

Having said that, I still believe we are to make an attempt to support the lesser of two evils if that is a possibility. I walked into a gas station one time and was floored to see that as soon as you walk in you are forced to look at dozens of pornographic magazines. All gas stations sell this junk but this particular one had them right up front making it impossible not to see them (I hate to think of the children that innocently walk in with their parents), making it an occasion of sin just to pay for your gas. That one is a no-brainer, there are plenty of other gas stations that at least put those magazines out of the way (some what), and so I havent been back inside that other one and never will.

I dont really think there is any alternative to Barnes and Noble that do not have those magazines out on the shelf.
 
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AlanFromWichita:
If the bad fruit is on display and up front, you might wish to convey your discomfort with the manager.
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As a matter of fact, the “bad fruit” was very much unavvoidable. You had to walk through the entire section of rottenness in order to get into the restroom! If my daughter were older than two, I’d have taken her to a different store so as to avoid her exposure to that.

As far as cutting down the grain with the fruit, I’m not sure we’d be doing that. Maybe. But couldn’t we just purchase books online (which is cheaper anyway) than spend our money with these giants who like to make an extra buck on lust?
 
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martino:
This is a good question and I have thought about it many times before. I have come to the conclusion that we would be forced out of society if we tried to boycott every story or company that promotes or sells pornography and other immoral garbage. I mean think about it…every grocery store has magazines with half naked women on the cover, every video store rents dirty movies and has the pornographic movie covers on the rack for all to see. If you have cable your provider sells X rated movies and many of the other companies we do business with donate huge amounts of money in support of abortion. Your phone company sells phone sex through those 900#'s.
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You’re right, and boy is it depressing!
All gas stations sell this junk but this particular one had them right up front making it impossible not to see them (I hate to think of the children that innocently walk in with their parents), making it an occasion of sin just to pay for your gas. That one is a no-brainer, there are plenty of other gas stations that at least put those magazines out of the way (some what), and so I havent been back inside that other one and never will.
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Could you be talking about a 7-eleven? That store seems to be the very worst. Next worst (in my area) is Diamond Shamrock. But I have also found several local gas stations who don’t sell it at all! Thank God! That’s where I buy my ever-so-expensive fuel. 🙂
I dont really think there is any alternative to Barnes and Noble that do not have those magazines out on the shelf.
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It may be just as bad (I haven’t researched it enough, so I don’t know), but I buy lots of my books through Half.com. At the very least, I’m not confronted with naked women upon entering the site. Wish I could say that much for the Barnes & Noble store.
 
surf(name removed by moderator)ure:
As far as cutting down the grain with the fruit, I’m not sure we’d be doing that. Maybe. But couldn’t we just purchase books online (which is cheaper anyway) than spend our money with these giants who like to make an extra buck on lust?
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That’s a perfectly good alternative. I do shop online, and usually get a discount and no shipping charges. The online places also make money on lust, but I figure they don’t put it between our children and the restroom.

Alan
 
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AlanFromWichita:
It also struck me just now that the disciples once asked Jesus if they should pull up the weeds growing alongside the grain. Jesus said to let them grow together lest they pull up the grain along with the wheat; they will be separated at harvest.

I mention this because these bookstores are trees bearing both good and bad fruit. If the bad fruit is on display and up front, you might wish to convey your discomfort with the manager.

Alan
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What you said pretty much just struck me as if slapped in the face. The bookstore at our mall has the magazines up front that are mingled with dirty magazines. Now when I went to buy the Catechism there it was all the way in the back. I guess it is just a common thing to put magazines upfront.
 
i didnt realize that they were selling these kinds of magazines, i guess cause i just buy books; i dont buy magazines very often (just men’s health every once in a while). i’m going to go to B&N today to get my brother a birthday present, so maybe i’ll say something about moving them to a more discrete location if they have them out front.
 
Few years ago, I took my 86 year old mom to a B&N in Connecticut. She has trouble walking and uses a stroller. As we approached the store, I noticed a large “Celebrate Gay Pride Week!” poster right next to the door. Here we go, I thought. She saw it, pushed her stroller inside and up to the main desk.

Very politely and calmly she informed a manager she had noticed the poster and asked “how do you suggest I celebrate Gay Pride Week?”
 
This is a very timely question. I have been wondering what to do about a similar situation I came across. At Target and Blockbuster Video online, they both have categories in their movie/DVD sections called “Gay and Lesbian”.

For example, they have the categories listed: Action, Drama, Family, Gay and Lesbian, etc.

I feel like they are promoting the “gay” agenda. I wrote in, asking them to remove the category. NOTE: I did not suggest they censor the material, or even suggest that they not carry it, since they carry other “R” rated material. I just wanted them to remove the category. Because to me it seemed like they were trying to normalize deviant behavior. They wrote back saying they didn’t want to “discriminate”. Dumb. Especially since kids will look at the Blockbuster page to see if a movie has come out.

I have actually found a Mom and Pop video store the next town over, and have been renting there. I don’t know what to do about Target, since they just wrote back and said they were forwarding my message, etc. and I haven’t heard anything more.

On a similar note, the Borders bookstore near me at one point had a “Gay and Lesbian” section right where you wait in line for the cashier. One day I was there with my son. The lines were long, and there were these “gay” books with half naked men in embraces, and the like. I had to keep engaging my son in constant conversation so he would not start looking around and perhaps noticing these books, until we were called by the cashier.

Anyway, I wrote to Borders and they did take action. The section is no longer there by the cashier. I don’t know if they dismantled it altogether, or just moved it. But I was glad it was gone from my view.

I don’t understand why “gays” warrant so much attention that they have to have entire categories devoted to them. And why the stores think this sort of marketing would be appealing to the rest of the population is beyond me.

Aunt Martha
 
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David_Paul:
Few years ago, I took my 86 year old mom to a B&N in Connecticut. She has trouble walking and uses a stroller. As we approached the store, I noticed a large “Celebrate Gay Pride Week!” poster right next to the door. Here we go, I thought. She saw it, pushed her stroller inside and up to the main desk.

Very politely and calmly she informed a manager she had noticed the poster and asked “how do you suggest I celebrate Gay Pride Week?”
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THAT’S GREAT! :rotfl:
 
Rand Al'Thor:
i didnt realize that they were selling these kinds of magazines, i guess cause i just buy books; i dont buy magazines very often (just men’s health every once in a while). i’m going to go to B&N today to get my brother a birthday present, so maybe i’ll say something about moving them to a more discrete location if they have them out front.
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Most B&N stores I’ve been into treat the magazines differently from how Border’s did. I think B&N tends to keep them toward the back and off to the side a bit. They still sell pornographic magazines, but they’re more out of the way. They do, however, have a tendency to put sexually-explicit book desplays out in the center aisle. And they keep a section of sex books (the kind with pictures) that is as large or larger than their religious section and their psychology section. Often you can’t find a book on religion or psychology without walking past dozens of book covers displaying naked people in sexual positions. **It’s disgusting! **
 
I agree that we’d have to stop existing in the world to avoid all the pornography sellers and bad companies. Hey, most people don’t realize it, but “muscle and fitness” and other such mags are used as porn by some people. Your local library probably carries that one. Mine does.😦

Avoid the most disgusting places. Otherwise, I think we’re stuck.
 
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AuntMartha:
This is a very timely question. I have been wondering what to do about a similar situation I came across. At Target and Blockbuster Video online, they both have categories in their movie/DVD sections called “Gay and Lesbian”. . . I don’t understand why “gays” warrant so much attention that
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The love which once dared not speak it’s name now won’t shut up.

Target is hopeless. The chain kicked Salvation Army bellringers off its property last Christmas and didn’t blink when it was besieged with complaints.

You may know this but for those who don’t, to make letters of complaint more effect:

Send copies to several layers of management in several departments and the CEO. Put “CC” with the name and department of everyone who receives a copy at the bottom.

Make it short and professional.

Middle management doesn’t want higher managerment asking, “I got a letter which was also sent to you, what did you do to take care of this customer?”
 
surf(name removed by moderator)ure:
THAT’S GREAT! :rotfl:
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She’s here, I’ll tell her. My little soft spoken mom was very pleased with herself that day. Bet the store employees haven’t forgotten her. Think that is what it will take-- average people quietly and repeatedly making an issue of that which we would rather not have in front of our face. If it can be done with gentle humor the impact is greater thans saying what we all want to do and say: “I’ll never shop here again” They know we probably will or if we don’t, they will not see it on the bottom line.
 
These bookstores also sell the Bible, Catechism of the Catholic Church, biographies of popes, saints etc.😃

Let the companies know how you feel about the “good stuff” they sell and the “bad stuff” they sell. There are those rare instances where they actually listen to and take into consideration the voices of the consumers.:clapping:

Karen Anne
 
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