Barnes & Noble Removes Anti-Gay Calendar While Amazon.com Continues To Stock "I’m Not Gay, I’m Just A Sissy "

Barnes & Noble has pulled a calendar by a Christian cartoonist that is sparking outrage in the gay community. Titled I'm Not Gay, I'm Just A Sissy, the calendar by Joe King has drawn staunch criticism for what many are calling homophobic humour and imagery, including one illustration which appears to awkwardly mock the HIV/AIDS crisis. Another cartoon portrays Paul Revere on horseback shouting, "The sodomites are coming! The sodomites are coming!" Few in the LGBT community are laughing and have called for retailers to stop selling the calendar. Barnes & Noble removed the calendar from its website, and a spokesperson for the company told the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation it was never made available in stores. Amazon continues to stock the item, according to 8WGAL. King has since taken to his Facebook page to defend his work, saying the cartoons are reprints of nationally distributed work several years old. "All the hysteria is coming from those nice folks who haven't bothered to actually purchase and read my collection," he wrote, adding, “Hoo-we! Hell hath no fury like a he/she scorned… The telephone tree of tantrums is lit up like a Las Vegas marquee for “Boy-Lesque” today with hate mail, threats of boycott and even the risk of Jesus spitting on me for my “Sissy” calendar.” He added that AIDS was an “elective disease” which would stop “the day guys quit sticking it to each other. And for the tragedy of women and children infected… THAT stops the day their gay husbands and fathers stop cheating on them. Anyone need MORE education, science or funding to understand THAT?”