Elton John Magazine Censored By 'Family Shield' in Supermarket

By Zach Dionne Posted Jan 26th 2011 03:21PM

A Harps supermarket in Mountain View, Ark., censored an Us Weekly cover featuring Elton John, husband David Furnish and their new baby, Zachary. Deemed inappropriate for "young Harps shoppers," the store placed a "family shield" in front of the magazine.

Twitter user @jennhudd saw the censored cover and began tweeting a photo to celebrities like Ellen DeGeneres, Anderson Cooper and Neil Patrick Harris, asking them to "bring attention" to the store's decision.

The Mountain View Harps responded to a call from PopEater on Wednesday afternoon with a curt "no comment" before hanging up. A call to the corporate office had us placed on hold, redirected and sent to a voice mail when asked for official comment.

CoverAwards.com had better luck speaking to Harps -- a cashier told the site Harps was "in a no-win situation" as children being shielded from the magazine cover would "have to know at some point [about gay families]."

PopEater's Naughty But Nice Rob Shuter reported that the Elton John cover sold poorly and wondered if America wasn't ready for "two men and a baby." Now he calls the censorship "very sad," asking, "We can let our families watch 'Jersey Shore' but not see a picture of Elton, his partner and their beautful baby boy?"

After originating the picture of the censored cover, @jennhudd reported the "family shields" had been removed, likely as a result of the Internet's interest in the issue. Jennifer sent a series of tweets suggesting offended parties call the Harps office and file complaints.

GLAADblog also spoke to Harps. The account:

I spoke with Harps Corporate Executive Assistant Marty Yarborough, who told me that every Harps store is equipped with these shields and that they get put up whenever customers complain about the content of a magazine cover. She said the word from the store about this particular cover was that "several" customers had complained, so the shield went up. She also confirmed that these shields are utilized on a store-by-store basis, so the magazine would not have been covered up at any of the other Harps locations, unless customers complained there as well. She also told me that the usage of the shield on this particular cover is "in no way our opinion on this issue." She quickly added, "we do not have an opinion on this issue."

BuzzFeed reports Harps has more than 60 locations in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

Elton John and David Furnish's son was born via a surrogate on Christmas Day. Zachary is the first child for John, 62, and Furnish, 48. The couple married in 2005 after being together for 12 years.

Based on Elton's recent sentiment for gay marriage opponents (hint: it involved an "F" and a "you"), we can assume he won't take kindly to being family-shielded in his moment of joy.

►Elton John Doesn't Care if His Son Is Gay or Straight

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Tags: David Furnish, Elton John

Comments

(1203)

Wednesday 26 January

By JMark

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You need to reread the scriptures. The reason Sodom and Gamorrah were destroyed was due to their hostility and non-acceptance of other people. It was because of their inhospitality they were destroyed.

By cokeandpilates

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How dare a bunch of hillbillies, that's right, I said hillbillies, decide what is appropriate and not appropriate for young shoppers. Clearly that is the parent's job, not a grocery store's. Seeing two adult men and their child in a picture is not offensive. First of all, most children do not care about the magazines at the check out and I'm sure a fine redneck establishment such as Harps keeps all the candy and crappy made in China toys at a child's eye level in that part of their stores. Second of all, it's offensive to me to see Brittney or Paris with their lady parts hanging out on the cover of the Enquirer than to see Elton John with his partner.

Thursday 27 January

By Purple Muffin

"Adult men?" Yeah, they are adults, but one looks like he is a senior.

By Nancy

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OOPS, I mean I agree with Ray only.

By Dawn

Good for Harps! About time someone listened to the majority of the REAL public and their opinions. I hope that baby turns out to be normal.

By David

If by "normal" you mean whoever he is going to be.... then I would have to answer, yes.

By AmyG

Appalling... I have to agree. What's offensive about the cover? A man holding a baby with another man in the background? Whoopdeedoo! It's not like he was dangling the baby over the balcony with a cloth over its face!

By Jared

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HOw dumb, like England can't deal with gays adopting babies. They have Prince Charles saying some years ago that he liked to suck Camilla's toes or something like that, I guess that was OK.
Brits are hyps (for hypocrits).

By Billy

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Jared@ Where are you getting your facts from? Gays people CAN adopted children in the the UK. What we can't do is sell our wombs to the highest bidder. Don't start talking about taking the moral high ground when you are in the gutter.

By brian clark

At leased it was a female toe he was sucking!

By Jim

Cool.... Gotta love the South... We all find that crap offensive here. If they want to be homosexual it is their CHOICE but don't make it where us NORMAL people have to have it thrown in our faces when we go out in public. I applaud the manager of this store for using the covers.

By JokesL3

Elton Johns wife isn't very pretty, she looks like a man.

Monday 31 January

By wordsmith

Do you think they will know how to feed the baby? I mean, they don't seem to know too much about human biology.

By 64c0dc00

Do they use the family shield to cover the mags that have pic of the big busted women when they almost fall out of their tops?? I don't think it was necessary to cover Elton and his husband and the baby, there wasn't anything wrong with that family pic, I thought they looked very happy. And some of the other mags are worse, they should be taken OFF of the display (some are that nasty).

By MackTroyClay

I saw the cover in the Jewel while waiting to check out. I couldn't take my eyes off of it--such a beautiful baby. If you read the article, they tried to adopt two HIV-infected brothers but were stymied by prejudice.

By mark

Gay,Gay,Gay.... I'm sooo sick of hearing about everyone's who GAY...If it get's me anywhere maybe I'll start wearing women's inderware

By Robert D'Addario

He has Elton's eyes, David's mouth & coloring, Elton's cheeks and....wait a minute....does anyone here realize what I'm writing here 'nuts'...pardon the pun.

By Karen Grant

Sorry - most of you out there are sadly mistaken - taking something that is clearly abnormal, unethical and abhorent and trying to twist, bend, shape it into being "normal". NOT! The day Elton announced he was gay/bisexual was the day I stopped listening to his music; all I could think about was that he was crooning about one of his gay lovers, and not a normal male/female thing. Hurray for the business for taking a stand. MORE businesses and people should do the same, including our shameless government! They certainly don't "represent" me.....

By Mike

I agree Karen. Remember Your Song? "My gift is my song and, this one's for you." Thought it was a love song for happy, healthy people and then I realized he was singing this to another guy. I remember lots of girls throwing away all of their Elton John albums. What a joke on humanity. Guess he made a few bucks beforehand though.

By Marilyn

I think it is ashame that little babies are used to try and advance the gay agenda. Lord help us all.

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