earsucker

Last night, Earsucker.com exclusively reported that there was a bit of controversy surrounding the latest issue of Us Weekly. The reason? The issue in question featured Elton John and his partner David Furnish on the cover. They were debuting their adorable son, Zachary and some complaints were lodged with the grocery store’s management. The manager then made the decision to place a “family shield” over the cover of the issue.

A customer, Jennifer Huddleston, snapped a photo of the shield, covering the Elton John baby issue. It caused such a rage on the internet that the store decided to remove the shield. Now, they’ve issued a statement on the matter, on their official website:

A statement from Harps regarding the US Weekly cover

We have received a number of complaints regarding an incident in our Mountain Home store involving the current issue of US Weekly Magazine depicting Elton John, David Furnish and their newborn son. I would like to explain how this happened. For many years we have provided each of our stores with shields which can be used at the manager’s discretion to cover the front of magazines when they receive complaints from our customers regarding either the photo on the cover of the magazine or the titles of articles contained within the magazine. Sometimes those photos might be sexually provocative or too revealing. The magazine article titles might also be too suggestive for some customers.

In this case our store manager received some complaints and, as has been our custom, placed the shield over the cover of the magazine. When we began receiving complaints at our corporate office, we reviewed the magazine in question, removed the shield and are selling the magazine in all our locations today without any shield.

Our true intention is not to offend anyone in our stores and this incident happened at just one of our 65 locations, which when brought to our attention, we reversed.

Kim B. Eskew
President & COO
Harps Food Stores, Inc.

Also of note, are several Twitter messages with regard to the original story. One Twitter user by the name of Greg, tweeted this, “i’ve worked at harps forever. those things never move. different cover for each checkout lane. it was covering this” and “http://twe.ly/_iq before that one. dont jump to conclusions.” The link actually points to Us Weekly’s January 10th issue, featuring a scantily clad Jennifer Lopez on the cover.

Another person on Twitter point this out, “I was a cashier @ a Fayetteville #Harps in high school. Ppl complained about magazine covers CONSTANTLY.”

Of course, we’re not printing their names, but it’s just to say that there are obviously two sides to every story. Not to play the devil’s advocate here, but when a grocery store gives their managers protocols to follow with regard to customer complaints, I’m sure they follow the rules to a T. It was a disgusting move, but just because the population of a small area is homophobic, it doesn’t mean that the store itself is. To offset the offense created by this matter, customers should go into Harps and complain about completely stupid covers so they have to “shield their young customers”.

Someone’s gotta think of the children!

What are your thoughts on the matter?

On January 18, 2011, Us Weekly debuted Elton John and partner David Furnish’s new baby, Zachary on the front cover. The happy singer talked about the birth of their son and said that they wouldn’t be spoiling him, but lavishing love on him.

Seems all well and good, right? (It is, that baby is so freakin’ cute!) That is, until I checked my Twitter feed and found this disturbing piece. Apparently there’s a grocery store in Arkansas called Harps, who is censoring the front cover of that particular issue of Us Weekly.

Jennifer Huddleston tweeted this message out to numerous people in the span of three hours, “This was taken at my local grocery store. I was shocked and horrified. Can you help bring attention to this? http://t.co/sqYhBzc”. The link shows you the photo below, taken of the censorship of Elton and David — BECAUSE they are an openly gay couple. She tweeted, “They are saying they need to keep children from seeing it, because it is a gay family.”

In case you’ve never heard of Harps, Jen has the details on that, as well. She tweeted, “Harps is a local grocery store chain here in Arkansas. Please feel free to share their phone number:870-425-6556.”

Here’s their website information, in addition to that. Contact them and let them know that this is just UNACCEPTABLE.

Elton John and husband David Furnish are happy fathers to their little boy, Zachary — and now they’re showing him off for the first time!

The happy family appear on the cover of the latest issue of Britain’s OK! magazine. Zachary was born via surrogate on December 25, 2010. The Sun reports:

Speaking at his Los Angeles home, he told OK! magazine: “He shot out like a rocket. There just aren’t proper words to describe that feeling. It’s indescribable. It was just, ‘We have a son’!”

Zachary was mothered by a surrogate, but Elton and 48-year-old David are the youngster’s legal parents.

Yet the multi-millionaire rocker emphasised the child would not be spoilt. He added: “I’m ready to have a child and lavish my love on our son and not spoil him.”

Congratulations to them for having a healthy and happy baby boy, he’s adorable!