Petition to Wal-Mart about Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and other magazines that sex-negative people object to

Through Morality in Media I learned of this petition asking Wal-Mart to require their suppliers to cover up magazines with "ANY nudity OR sexually explicit language on the cover". The petitioner, Angie Smethers, started the petition because she was upset when her daughter saw the 2008 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition cover, shown.

Smethers believes that children need to be "protected" from images like this (without explaining why).

I, on the other hand, believe that children need to be protected from harmful ideas like that the body is shameful and must be hidden. What kind of message is this mother giving her daughter, when she indicates that while males routinely wear topless swimsuits, it is a terrible thing for a woman to do the same thing?

Wal-Mart is so huge that if they were to develop a policy requiring magazines to censor their covers to satisfy people who are unhappy and frightened about sex and nudity, it could well result in many magazines being censored--magazines are unlikely to produce a separate uncut edition for other retailers.

So please, take a minute to sign my petition asking Wal-Mart to continue selling law-abiding magazines such as Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition rather than censoring them.