We highlighted the battle between angry Australian gamers and Target stores a few days back. You might remember how gamers started a petition on Change.org to have Fifty Shades of Grey removed from Target shelves, much like the store removed copies of Grand Theft Auto V from the shelves due to a similar petition.
Several other petitions popped up, including the one asking Target to change its name. But the one that really stood out was the one calling for Target to remove The Bible from its shelves:
It’s a book that encourages readers to murder women for entertainment. The incentive is to commit sexual violence against women, then abuse or kill them to proceed or get ‘god’ points – and now Target are stocking it and promoting it for your Xmas stocking.
This is The Holy Bible. This book means that after various sex acts, readers are given options to kill women by stoning her unconscious, Setting them on fire, cutting off their hands, and killing their children!
One of many fan passages on In The Holy Bible depicts woman being set alight for having sex “And the daughter of any priest, if she profane herself by playing the whore, she profaneth her father: she shall be burnt with fire.” (Leviticus 21:9).
This misogynistic book literally makes a game of bashing, killing and horrific violence against women. It also links sexual arousal and violence.
Hey, they ain’t making that stuff up. It’s a book full of people wanting to rape angels and burning people in furnaces. They should probably keep it behind a locked door or in one of those cases they kept tarot cards in at Borders. Well they should if they actually sold The Bible.
That’s right, this petition chugged all the way to 40,000 signatures since starting on December 4th and someone tweeted the huge numbers @Target. This prompted the store to respond in glorious fashion:
https://twitter.com/Targetaus/status/541494599953293312
This round goes to Target. They have the upper hand now. It isn’t a sizzling burn, but it is a bit of pie in 40,000 faces.