And Tango Makes Three

SHILOH, Ill. -- A picture book about two male penguins raising a baby penguin is getting a chilly reception among some parents who worry about the book’s availability to children -- and the reluctance of school administrators to restrict access to it.

The concerns are the latest involving “And Tango Makes Three,” the illustrated children’s book based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo that adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own.

Complaining about the book’s homosexual undertones, some parents of Shiloh Elementary School students believe the book -- available to be checked out of the school’s library in this 11,000-resident town 20 miles east of St. Louis -- tackles topics their children aren’t ready to handle.

Their request: Move the book to the library’s regular shelves and restrict it to a section for mature issues, perhaps even requiring parental permission before a child can check it out. (source)

Additional source.

Well, I’m ordering my copy today, just in case I have small kids come to my home who want something to read through.

I’m so sick of people taking a very simple subject matter that has been put into a format that young children can understand, and making it into something dirty.

Honesty, dignity, hope, integrity -- these should never be made into a dirty little secret that should be kept. The dirty little secret to this story is the idea that this book, and others like it, must be moved to “the library’s regular shelves” and “restrict it to a section for mature issues”. In other words, put the book in “the closet”. They also want to “perhaps” require permission from the parents (approve of their children learning homophobia) before the book can be checked out.

After some gay person is bashed or killed, I often hear the boy’s parents say something to the effect, “I have no idea where he got these feelings from.”; “He’s such a nice church-going boy.”; “I never taught him to hate homosexuals.”

BULL. Every time things like this come up, you teach kids that the LGBT community must abide by a different standard, and that gays are somewhat less than their peers. It’s the same argument used to push the idea that “civil unions”, which are “separate, but equal”, is a middle ground that should be acceptable by all reasonable parties. By definition, separate is never equal. If it were, why keep it separate? The story in this book is based on the true story of two male penguins in New York City’s Central Park Zoo, who adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own.

This is where the seed of hatred is planted in children at a very early age. This book has nothing sexual in it, other than the lesson of compassion and love and family. What on earth is so bad about that? They should be teaching their kids that families today come in all sizes and types, and that heterosexual families don’t have a patent on what a family consists of, or the concept of love and commitment.