Kmart is under fire for banning words ‘Jesus’ and ‘Church’ on their photo kiosks while ‘Islam’ and ‘Mosque’ are OK.
Australian Kmart customers Anthony Dorsett and his wife, Marelynda, were attempting to print photographs for a church group in a kiosk at Kmart.
They found that certain Christian-related words — including “God,” “church,” “Jesus,” “Jewish” and “Bible” — were deemed to be profanity and replaced by asterisks, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Kmart said that the ban on Christian words was not intentional and was not a targeted attempt to suppress Christian values.
“This is a system error and it will be updated overnight. It in no way reflects our views as a business,” the spokesman told The Daily Telegraph.
“At Kmart, we support diversity and inclusiveness irrespective of race, religion, age, gender, ethnicity, ability, appearance or attitude and we want our teams and stores to reflect the communities in which we operate.”
Journalists from the Daily Telegraph decided to investigate the supposed glitch to see if words associated with other religions were also banned.
According to News.com reporters found that words including “Islam,” “Allah” and “Koran” were allowed.
7 News’s Sunrise host Sam Armytage called that excuse “rubbish” and her guest, social commentator Jane Caro, said Kmart should apologise.
“They just need to say ‘Wow, stupid, sorry. We’ve fixed it. We didn’t mean to give anybody offence’.”
Daisy Cousens from Sky News also condemned Kmart saying blaming it on the software is “a joke” and the word selection highlights a “huge double standard,” the Christian Post reports.
She said, “It’s like it’s a joke. Sure, they’ve blamed it on a software error but isn’t that what you blame everything on when something goes wrong that’s somewhat controversial?
“This is just unbelievable. It’s such a huge double standard.”
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