Harp’s Supermarkets in Arkansas decided a cover of a gay male couple (elton John and partner) and their baby is too much…for the kids, so covered it up. Over it it reads, “Family Shiled. To protect young Harp’s shoppers.”
This is too funny to belong in the Pit, seriously…OH NOES!!! the childrend saw a loving couple and their child…won’t somebody think of the child…oh whew! Because nothing dampens a childs curiosity than keeping them from seeing something.
Wtf, it’s just two people not even doing a PDA, right? What gives?
I don’t think the shield is protecting young readers from seeing a gay family, more likely from being traumatized by Elton’s smile. Surely he can take a better picture, that one looks mid-burp.
I saw that magazine and I can’t think any child would give it more thought than assuming it’s a picture of grandpa-daddy-baby.
It’s a rich old guy with his trophy spouse.
Can’t have the young’ns seeing such depravity. 
Funny, the shielded magazine is clearly showing two men together on the cover. The depraved, sinful, corrupting baby is what’s obscured.
Although… judging from the slightly creepy smiles, I have to wonder if they aren’t planning on eating the baby, or raising it for spare parts. It looks like it could fit into a sub sandwich bun.
(Just to clarify, I do not think that gay men are any more likely to eat babies than the general populace.)
The text on the gray cover looks Photoshopped in. For one thing, it’s parallel to the edges of the picture itself, not the “shield” its ostensibly printed on. Still ridiculous.
More like Wayne & Garth switch sides and got haircuts, I’d say.
Do they hide the cover for this other book that shows a gay couple and their son?
Eh, I’m having a hard time getting outraged over this. Some hyper-Baptist, homophobic-since-before-birth store manager decided he didn’t want to display teh gays in his store so he covered them up. Ignorant, sure, but not quite a hate crime.
I’m sure they had the shields lying around anyway to protect young innocent eyes from those disgracefully racy Cosmo and Glamour covers – which seems rather quaint to me in the first place, but then I don’t live in the Bible Belt – so the text was not necessarily case-specific.