Saturday, April 17, 2004

Summer will be here soon, and thousands of American men will be shirtless at the beach, at the pool and in the back yard. If you are one of those men, someone may take a photograph of you, which is all well and good, unless she takes the negatives to a Walgreen's photo department. Last fourth of July, someone in Cleveland did just that, the employee in the photo department decided that the photo was offensive, and trashed it instead of printing it.

The assistant manager of the store cited a law that gives such employees the right to exercise their judgment about what gets printed in the photo department. That is a lie: There is no such law. What there is, however, is the American Family Association, a right-wing organization that seeks to impose far right-wing values on everyone in the nation. The AFA, it turns out, has been badgering and attacking Walgreen's for some time because the chain didn't subscribe to the organization's censorship advice. Walgreen's apparently couldn't take the pressure anymore, and now employees may make determinations about whether your photos get printed.

The man in question had a pierced nipple, so we can make a safe assumption that it wasn't his bare chest that offended the Walgreen's photo clerk. When, if ever, are Americans going to take the country back from the gay-hating, women-hating, non-Christian-hating, ignorance-promoting, hypocritical no-neck monsters who have taken it over?