Freedom!!!

Okay, I have to get this off my chest. I am so sick of people coming in the shop and asking why we carry books on "satanism"(harry potter is a big one with that), or why we carry Obama's autobiographies when he's "such a sleazeball". They don't seem to understand that as a bookstore, we can't just sell books that support our values, religion, or anything else. We have to be completely unbiased on the literature we sell. However, that doesn't stop customers for berating us on everything they see on the shelves that they don't like.

These complaints often come in interesting ways. During the elections we had a lot of people that would come in for the soul purpose of taking every pro-Obama book and magazine with his picture on it, and turning them around so all you saw was the back cover. Every once in a while we'd have someone threaten to boycott the shop if we didn't take those books off the shelves. Really! I know our President isn't well liked by the majority of the people right now, but that doesn't mean the shop can discriminate against him.

Our "adult room" also takes a lot of heat. We constantly have parents tell us how disgusted they are that we have that room. It's got a wooden door that's not see-thru, so it's not like kids can just peek inside. Really religious people have no problem telling me I'm "going straight to hell" for selling "such filth". I don't judge the customers that do utilize that part of our store. It's their choice to look at that stuff, and as long as they aren't involving children or being abusive with it, then who cares? Is some guy watching porn in the privacy of his own home going to affect your life? (Just throwing this in here) It's like gay marriage. How is a married gay couple in California going to affect a hetero married couple in Iowa? The controversy makes no sense to me.

We are so lucky to live in this country, a country so awesome and full of possibilities that people regularly put themselves and their loved ones in danger of being arrested by coming here illegally! And yet there's so many out there that believe that everyone should think, act, and believe in one uniformed set of rules. That's such a dictatorship! I'm proud to work in a shop that doesn't discriminate against any type of literature. I'll sell "Conversations with God" to someone the same day I sell "Witchcraft for Dummies" to someone else, and think nothing of it. The freedom to pursue knowledge means any type of knowledge!

Don't let anyone tell you the books you read are bad! It's your fundamental right as an American to read whatever you feel like reading!