Cake request for 3-year-old Hitler namesake denied

EASTON, Pa. (AP) — The father of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell,
denied a birthday cake with the child's full name on it by one New
Jersey supermarket, is asking for a little tolerance. Heath Campbell
and his wife, Deborah, are upset not only with the decision made by the
Greenwich ShopRite, but with an outpouring of angry Internet postings
in response to a local newspaper article over the weekend on their
flare-up over frosting.

'I think people need to take their heads
out of the cloud they've been in and start focusing on the future and
not on the past,' Heath Campbell said Tuesday in an interview conducted
in Easton, on the other side of the Delaware River from where the
family lives in Hunterdon County, N.J.

'There's a new president
and he says it's time for a change; well, then it's time for a change,'
the 35-year-old continued. 'They need to accept a name. A name's a
name. The kid isn't going to grow up and do what (Hitler) did.'

Deborah
Campbell, 25, said she phoned in her order last week to the ShopRite.
When she told the bakery department she wanted her son's name spelled
out, she was told to talk to a supervisor, who denied the request.

Karen
Meleta, a spokeswoman for ShopRite, said the Campbells had similar
requests denied at the same store the last two years and said Heath
Campbell previously had asked for a swastika to be included in the
decoration.

'We reserve the right not to print anything on the
cake that we deem to be inappropriate,' Meleta said. 'We considered
this inappropriate.'

The Campbells ultimately got their cake
decorated at a Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania, Deborah Campbell said. About
12 people attended the birthday party on Sunday, including several
children who were of mixed race, according to Heath Campbell.

'If we're so racist, then why would I have them come into my home?' he asked.

The
Campbells' other two children also have unusual names: JoyceLynn Aryan
Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie
Campbell will be 1 in April.

Heath Campbell said he named his son
after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because 'no one else
in the world would have that name.' He sounded surprised by all the
controversy the dispute had generated.

Campbell said his
ancestors are German and that he has lived his entire life in Hunterdon
County. On Tuesday he wore a pair of black boots he said were worn by a
German soldier during World War II.

He said he was raised not to
avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or
romantically. But he said he would try to raise his children
differently.

'Say he grows up and hangs out with black people. That's fine,
I don't really care,' he said. 'That's his choice.'