Wal-Mart Makes Check-Out Lanes Family-Friendly

Taken from CWFA.org (Article Date: June 11, 2003):

Places Blinders Over Racy Magazines

Wal-Mart’s latest move toward a family-friendly environment is being greeted by cheers and ringing registers. On June 6 the nation’s largest retailer announced that it will be installing U-shaped blinders over four racy women’s magazines in its check-out aisles.

“For at least a year we’d been getting some feedback … from customers
who were uncomfortable with [the covers],” Wal-Mart spokesman Jay Allen told Reuters on Friday.

Wal-Mart announced that it will be installing specially
made, U-shaped magazine racks that will conceal the story tease lines on each side of the magazine, leaving the center and the magazine’s name viewable.

The magazines involved are Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Marie Claire and
Glamour. Those magazines will continue to be displayed in the store’s magazine section without any sort of cover.

Wal-Mart has been testing various blinders and ways to satisfy the
magazine’s readers while protecting children. The new magazine rack blinders should be in all Wal-Mart stores by July.

“We are very pleased that Wal-Mart has taken this step to protect our families,” said Robert H. Knight, director of the Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America.

“This action, along with the discontinued sale of the racy men’s
magazines, and the retailer’s refusal to sell music with adult-rated lyrics, among other things, show’s Wal-Mart’s commitment to the family,” he added.

“We encourage families to be looking for these new blinders, and when
they see them to make sure they extend a thank-you to the store manager,” Knight said.

Arthur Ally, coalition leader and president of The Timothy Plan, a collection of pro-family mutual funds and, said he hopes that appreciative families will further reward the retail giant.

“I hope that customers will take the time to link their appreciation for
this action to their patronage of the retailer. Wal-Mart’s ‘language of love’ is the ringing of its registers. That 'thank-you,' linked to this action, will go a long way in the fight for decency both at Wal-Mart and among its competitors,” Ally told Culture & Family Report.

The Timothy Plan is also saying “thank-you” to the company by reversing its August decision to sell all of its shares of Wal-Mart stock. That move was made after repeated requests for the action went unheeded.

“As of today, Wal-Mart is off our screens,” Ally said. “Our fund managers now have a green light to buy Wal-Mart shares for our
family of mutual funds.”

Those customer complaints that led to this change were accompanied by united action from 10 pro-family groups, which sent a collection of letters to the retailer on May 30, 2003, asking for removal of the magazines from the check-out aisles. Each group stressed the action's goal was to protect families and children.

“A large percentage of your customer base does not appreciate having the kinds of sexually explicit (cover-page) headlines touted by these publications staring them (or their children or other family members) in the face as they wait to pay for their purchases,” wrote Robert Peters, president of Morality in Media, to Lee Scott, head of the Bentonville, Arkansas, retailer, which had $244.5 billion dollars in sales last year.

“We have heard from many, many people regarding how offensive they find such publications staring them and their children in the face as they make their family purchases at their local Wal-Marts,” wrote Concerned Women for America President Sandy Rios.

The letters were sent to Wal-Mart thanking them for its early May decision to stop selling three sexually suggestive men’s magazines, Maxim, FHM and Stuff.

“However, of greater concern than what magazines are available to willing customers is the question of what magazines are forced upon unwilling customers by being aggressively displayed in the check-out lanes of your stores,” wrote Family Research Council President Kenneth Connor.

Positive Signs at the Commissary

Today at the Fort Riley Commissary, I was encouraged. When waiting in line to pay for my groceries, I noticed that there was a Men's Fitness magazine covered in the same manner that is pictured above. I was pleased that this particular check-out aisle was kid-friendly. This is a victory for Fort Riley's military families.

Curious, I asked the cashier why the magazine was covered. She stated, "some jealous woman complained about and it; so they covered it."

I simply smiled, checked out, loaded my groceries in the car, and walked back in to the Commissary. This time, I went to the customer service office and asked to speak to the manager. The manager wasn't on duty, but the assistant manager was. He came quickly to the front probably anticipating a complaint. I told him, "I have a compliment for your store, I want to let you know because I know compliments are rare."

I asked the assistant manager to follow me so that I could show him what I was pleased about. I then showed him the magazine that was covered and said that this was "...a good step in the right direction. This is what customers expect." The manager told me that he was simply responding to customer complaints. I told him that I appreciate what he did and that a good rule of thumb is - if ever in doubt, cover it up, because military parents deserve the right to determine what their children are exposed to."

Toward the end of our pleasant conversation, he told me that if his headquarters knew that he covered the magazine, they wouldn't be pleased. Surprised, I responded that if he receives retribution from his chain of command for covering this or any other magazine he should let me know because I would support him in front of his superiors. Motivated by my compliment, he said, "I know there are more magazines that aren't covered that should be; maybe I should look into that." Of course I agreed, but in the end I was simply encouraged by the current situation.

Additionally, I would like to comment on Men's Fitness Magazine. Usually, it isn't a bad magazine. However, if one issue is questionable, AAFES needs to err on the side of protecting children. This magazine is questionable because its cover states "10 sex tips". Also, it is objectionable because it has pictured a woman with her breasts bulging out of her swimsuit top. Swimsuit tops aren't bad. We all go to the beach. But adding sex to the equation makes the magazine inappropriate. Parents have a right to not have their kids exposed to this stuff. There should never be an "in-your-face" approach to selling periodicals. Selling questionable magazines in the check-out aisle is unacceptable.

In conclusion, the Commissary at Fort Riley, Kansas has set the standard for local managers. Although FixAAFES.org would like to still see Cosmopolitan and the like removed from the AAFES inventory, covering the magazines is a major step in the the right direction. We at FixAAFES.org hope that AAFES as a whole follows the example of this local leader and implements this policy world-wide.

Allow me to also note, some may argue that the current system works - when local managers receive complaints from customers they act. However, this positive sign at the Commissary has not, as far as I've seen, been the standard response of local mangagers. Many local managers have a nonchalant or sometimes confrontational attitude towards customers who don't agree with the way they are running their store. For this reason, a company-wide policy is essential.

Unsolicited Sex Education

According to our "Call to AAFES" we ask AAFES to not position any offensive materials in areas where the customer is a "captive audience". In this article, I would like to elaborate on what we mean by this request.

We are talking mainly about the checkout aisle. In the AAFES checkout aisle, every customer gets an immediate sexual education class - whether they want one or not. Here is a list of what one might expect to read in the AAFES checkout aisle taken from the past two issues of Cosmopolitan:

“Sex vs. Skanky”
“30 Sex Boosters”
“Discover the Sex Fantasy That 68% of Men Have”
“Orgasms Unlimited”
“8 Places to Have Sex"

There are other magazines AAFES has in their checkout aisle that have similar titles. Children, who are authorized customers of AAFES, have to checkout through this same aisle that adults do. There are also adults who are principled who don't want to see those slogans either.

AAFES should immediatly stop selling these titles for the reasons above, but more importantly because these titles represent a stark contrast to the military culture of decency and military mission of winning hearts and minds while serving overseas.

Censorship

Censorship is the control of speech or other human expression. The freedoms against censorship granted to Americans comes primarily from the First Amendment of the Constitution which states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

One could almost argue that asking AAFES to not sell pornography or CD's with explicit lyrics is censorship. However, that argument is logically invalid because the First Amendment states that we have the right to say what we want, but it doesn't guarantee us the ability to make a profit off of our speech. You can say what you want, but people don't have to be forced to listen to it or be forced to pay for it. That is why Wal-mart and Target don't sell pornography, because they choose not to.

Also, since AAFES is a government store, it could be argued that the government is censoring products. That just doesn't pass the common sense test. A store can't sell everything - even if it is a government store. It isn't going to sell books that teach us how to build bombs nor is it going to sell books that teach us how to break into government computer servers. AAFES "bans" those books from its product catalogs because they would threaten national security. A store can't sell everything, so by its very nature, even if it is run by the government, it must be selective in what it sells.

Another point. AAFES serves the military. The military doesn't fall under the First Amendment, those rights are actually taken away when you take your Oath of Enlistment or Commission. In fact, the military falls under a totally different judicial code called the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). In order to maintain good order and discipline, Congress and the President have powers within the Constitution to limit the speech of Service Members. Some laws in the UCMJ that limit free speech are Articles 88-90. They read as follows:

Article 88:
Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous words against the President, the Vice President, Congress, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of a military department, the Secretary of Transportation, or the Governor or legislature of any State, Territory, Commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

Article 89:
Any person subject to this chapter who behaves with disrespect toward his superior commissioned officer shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

Article 90:
Any person subject to this chapter who—
(1) strikes his superior commissioned officer or draws or lifts up any weapon or offers any violence against him while he is in the execution of his office; or
(2) willfully disobeys a lawful command of his superior commissioned officer; shall be punished, if the offense is committed in time of war, by death or such other punishment as a court-martial may direct, and if the offense is committed at any other time, by such punishment, other than death, as a court-martial may direct.”

Not only to these military laws limit free speech, but they give superiors the ability to tell service members what to do. That is definitely not freedom; it is essential for discipline, however.

So back to AAFES. AAFES serves the military who falls under UCMJ. If AAFES sells products that contradict the spirit of the military, it shouldn't sell them. And if the military commanders or the civilian command authority decides a product undermines discipline in the military, they have every right, under the law, to ban that product. This in no way is censorship, because books are still allowed to be printed, movies are still allowed to be made, and CD's are still allowed to be produced. These companies just aren't going to make a profit on the military who wish to maintain their Honor and Decency.