Gay penguin book shakes up Ill. school

[Tab]

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.
...
"My feeling is that a library is to serve an entire population," she said. "It means you represent different families in a society — different religions, different beliefs."

Lilly Del Pinto thought the book looked charming when her 5-year-old daughter brought it home in September. Del Pinto said she was halfway through reading it to her daughter "when the zookeeper said the two penguins must be in love."

"That's when I ended the story," she said.
...
She said the book was then moved to the nonfiction section because it was based on actual events. In that section, she said, there was less of a chance that the book would "blindside" someone.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061117/ap_on_re_us/gay_penguins_book_flap

God forbid we learn about "actual events" :eyes:

[flvegan]

1. It's best that young students be kept from factual animal stories.

Homosexual undertones, indeed. I can see the lawsuits already, from parents CONVINCED that their 13 year old "caught the gay" from reading a true childrens story about penguins.

Keep them the hell away from the history books then, and it would be nothing less than abusive to let them crack open The Bible, considering the stories therein.

[B3Nut]

4. They're too chained to wooden literalism

to be willing to see instances of homosexuality in the natural world, else they might have to admit it's part of the natural order of things like anything else. Hell, that's one of the things that cured me of fundamentalism...I couldn't discount what was obviously empirical evidence, the cognitive dissonance was too great. I'll stick to reason and science nowadays, thanks...

Todd in Cheesecurdistan

[zreosumgame]

44. Good Lord Yes!

can't have kids learning about Alexander the Great or DaVinci (not the stupid code!) and those kinds of people!

[Henryman]

2. Who's teaching whom???

"Some parents of Shiloh Elementary School students believe the book...tackles topics their children aren't ready to handle."

IMO, some parents may not be ready to handle this topic. Is there any indication the children aren't ready?

Also, this looks like another example of Faux-News type "journalism" using the "some people" tactic to avoid factual reporting.

[meganmonkey]

5. Welcome to DU, Henryman!

You make a great point :)

[Joe Bacon]

3. Oh thank God its not "Heather Has Two Mommies"!

:sarcasm: mode now off

[Psychmd]

6. Great book

My partner and I have had this book for awhile. We have adopted three children currently 5, 3, and 2 years old. They love this book. Mainly because they are obsessed with penguins. It is wonderful to have children books with diverse families represented. I don't think reading dozens of Dora the Explorer books have turned my kids hispanic yet. But, I am keeping a close eye on them.

[Bassic]

7. Blindside someone?

Why are so many Americans (at least it looks like there are a lot of them, maybe they just make a whole lot of noise) hell-bent on remaining ignorant, and keeping their kids ignorant? This is just one more manifestation of that.

Edit: I should say North-Americans, because we've got our fair share of them up here as well.

[Tab]

10. I wondered about that

I haven't read the book. But does it suddenly turn into:

"Ling and Bing, the male penguin friends and lovers, say goodnight to Tango, and retreat into their Penguin bedroom. There, in the privacy of their igloo, Ling undresses Bing with soft kisses and looks up to Bing to say "Oh, what a large icicle you have!""

Because if it's not explicit like that, and it's just two male penguins that care for each other and raise a child penguin, I don't see how you can be "blindsided".

p.s.: Sorry for the "penguin porn". I've never written anyway, and didn't know if I'd be any good at it. :)

[Bassic]

11. rofl

penguin porn :rofl:

[Robb]

12. Seething mound of

...PENGUIN LUST!!! :rofl:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

8. Notice it's the parents that can't deal with this...

...not the kids. When parents complain about "topics their children aren't ready to handle", they are projecting their narrow-mindedness on their kids. Truth can be shattering when one lives in a world of illusion. It's time to ditch the fantasy.

[Brazenly Liberal]

9. Does the library require parental permission for books saying a man and a woman must be in love?

Southern Illinois isn't what you'd call a hotbed of progressive thought, so the fact that the book is available at all is a near miracle.

Still, I am just so freaking sick of having the moral values of the least moral among us applied to all of us. Pandering to the haters is no way to end hatred.

[Ellen Rose]

13. Southern Illinois

:headbang: "Southern Illinois isn't what you'd call a hotbed of progressive thought, so the fact that the book is available at all is a near miracle."

Oh, come on now, just drive through any of the smaller towns in So. Illinois and you can see just how thoughtful many are. Unfortunately, many find it necessary to place signs in their front yards to remind them of what they are thinking, such as: The Ten Commandments and I Love Jesus. The local sign makers are hoping they will have another thought soon that they don't want to forget.

:think:

[Brazenly Liberal]

15. You got that right! Welcome to DU!

I live in Central Illinois, where it's not noticeably better. Here, they don't put signs in the yards, but the first question people ask when they meet you is "What church do you go to?"

[SIU_Blue]

28. Fine I admit it...

I was drawn to reply to this thread purely to join the legions of other So. Ill DU'ers.

;-)

Oh yeah, and about the Penguin thing, wouldn't want something like reality to interfere with homophobic dream-worlds.:crazy:

[cap]

14. but that's what penguins do...

while the egg is gestating, dad is sitting on it with a whole bunch of his buddies who are watching their eggs. Many eggs dont make it so there are solitary males in the flock. The women have gone off to eat and will return many weeks later.


hmmmm.... maybe we have much to learn about penguins that would be socially disruptive.

[gorbal]

36. Male humans should do the same

They spend so much time siting on the couch with their buddies, they should be sitten on an egg while their at it.

[Solly Mack]

16. People - some...are gutless wonders.

They talk a good game about life, love, and family but when confronted with the realities of life, love, and family it scares them so badly they have to hide it from view.

If two penguins adopting an orphan as their own scares you, you probably are a pathetic little
piss-pot of a human. And if a book about those penguins scares you, you're a waste of oxygen.

Those penguins did what comes natural and as a result a life was saved, a family was born, and a lesson in love was taught - if that's a bad thing for human children to learn then there's something terribly wrong with humans.

The kingdom animalia will never conform to the learned ignorance of its human members...and that's a good thing. A very good thing.

[fortyfeetunder]

17. Perhaps the library shouldn't stock "Three Men and a Baby"

movie in their library. What would the kids think of that????

[Tight_rope]

18. Christ on two sticks....These homophobic people are getting way outta control

Is just a fucking book about animals raising a baby. Good God Almighty...:spank:

[gollygee]

19. Blindsided by the words, "They must be in love"?

*sigh*

Somewhere, someone is ranting about this book to a spouse, in front of their kids, and there's a kid who is coming to the realization that he/she is gay and his/her parents won't accept it.

[closeupready]

20. LOL - I love it - "homosexual undertones"

is that like a heterosexual overture?

[olshak]

21. Just another shining example...

...of how the penguin population is flaunting their immoral lifestyle in front of our human children. Everyone knows that God only invented penguins for animation purposes in children's movies and baby seals for clubbing. This travesty must stop now!

:P :P :P :P :P

[AliceWonderland]

22. Oh gawd, I just saw this story on MSN and wondered if anyone had posted about it

My first thought -- of all the real problems facing schools and children and society in general, what kind of parent would devote energy to... gay penguins? One single book on a shelf? It looks like a fine children's book from the illustrations on the cover (I also like the stuffed penguins flanking it in the pic). And it seems to be sitting on top of Harry Potter... which some parents have a problem with, too... oh no, gay penguins on top of Harry Potter, we have a moral crisis!

Honestly. You'd think parents would be spending their time working on child hunger or public funding for education or health care coverage for families. This is what I don't get -- the folks who seem to have all the time/energy in the world for hysterical moral outrage -- "I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell ya, that homosexual penguins are forcing the gay liberal agenda on the CHILDREN, won't someone think of the CHILDREN!!!" -- but little apparent interest in the real issues that affect families.

Free the penguins! Free the penguins!!

[Irreverend IX]

23. Yeah, they should definitely restrict access to it.

They'll need a basement vault with three foot-thick steel walls and a hydraulically locked door requiring a palm and retina scan to open. That should make sure the children aren't exposed to the high-intensity gay rays emanating from the book. I bet one look at that thing is enough to make a boy want to play with dolls.

[Tab]

24. You know what? I have a 10 yr old

I haven't read this particular book, but I'm pretty sure that, even at age 10, if it was read to him, the most he would get out of it is a sort of "awww, they raised the baby". He barely gets images of people boinking, much lest penguins, and they all look the same anyway...

The only way they would infer any homosexuality out of this is if the concept were introduced to them.

As adults, we think two men living together = homosexuality, but kids just think two men living together = two men living together.

Honestly, did you watch The Odd Couple on TV and think that Oscar was boinking Felix? No, neither did I.

[Ishoutandscream2]

25. You got it!

My 6 year old boy would think exactly that. It's the fundies who are attempting to make it "lewd."

[yellowcanine]

47. Oscar was boinking Felix? Who knew?

[Nite Owl]

26. It's a true story!

What don't they understand about that. It belongs where it is and they should move back to their little bubble of denial if they don't like it. They can't continue to make up the truth.

[baldguy]

27. The "family values" crowd doesn't like actual family values.

[FlaGranny]

29. It's very odd that two beings of the same

sex would be considered gay because they cooperate to raise a baby. Why is that?

The moral of the story is that a lone male or a lone female should never help raise someone else's baby? Interesting concept. Nannies better be careful.

[hatrack]

30. I'm sorry, I don't understand:

These people are threatened because of a fictionalized account of two PENGUINS raising a chick together?

What the FUCK is WRONG with these people?

[NickB79]

31. IMO, because it is based on a true story

This book is based on an event that really did occur in a zoo. If the fundies admit that two animals of the same sex can successfully raise offspring, their mantra of "ban gay marriage to save the children" begins to look even weaker than it already is.

This is a lot like the episode of South Park where the teacher, Mr. Garrison, assigns couples in his class an egg to represent a baby. If the egg breaks, you fail. Kyle and Stan are the "gay" couple, and Mr. Garrison is determined to see them fail to show how gays are unfit to be parents and thus stop Big Gay Al and Mr. Slave from getting married. He even goes so far as to hire a hitman to "assasinate" the egg :-) It's really scary when South Park episodes explain so well the thought processes of actual people.

[KitSileya]

32. Jeez, it's a good thing they don't know that 1500 species have gay individuals

There are at least 1500 species that we know have lesbian and gay individuals - heck, lions are bot gay and incestuous, brother having sex with brother. Orangutangs make dildoes, dolphins have intespecies sex, and one out of every ten seagull couple are lesbians. Homosexual dolphin couples stay together for years, while heterosexual dolphin affairs are usuall one night stands. 90% of all giraffe sex is gay intercourse. As a matter of fact, there are no species where one has proven that all individuals are exclusively heterosexual - except in asexual species.

And when it comes to these narrow-minded bigots, they're worse parents than the gay penguin couple. I'm sure many of you can vividly imagine being one of these children and discovering you're gay.

[geniph]

33. I once had a woman try to explain this to me...

...why she was so threatened by the idea of her kids seeing any depiction of anything that might be even remotely tolerant of same-sex couples. It had nothing to do with fearing that the Evil Gay Rays would infest her kids. It wasn't even fear of seeing explicit behaviors. It was because she was TOO DAMN DUMB to figure out how to explain to her 7-year-old why two men were holding hands.

I suggested she try "because they love one another, honey" and leave it at that, and her head exploded like a Martian listening to Slim Whitman.

I guess the idea of LOVE between two people is a damned radical and frightening concept.

(Then again, I had a very similar conversation some years back with a woman who would let her preteen kids watch R-rated movies that were so rated because of violence, but not because of nudity - and what it came down to was that it was easier to explain why people wanted to kill each other than why they wanted to have sex with one another or see one another naked. She was too embarrassed to explain sexual desire to her kids, but did not find explaining the wish to do harm embarrassing in the least. If that isn't a sad commentary on our sick society, I don't know what is.)

:eyes:

[FVZA_Colonel]

45. That reminds me of something I once read on a web forum two years ago-

It was about the time that the Dawn of the Dead remake came out, and someone was posting about how their parents wouldn't let them see it because a woman was topless in it, though they had been willing to let him see it before they found out. I am now paraphrasing one of the responses-

"so your parents were ok with letting you see a movie in which a baby gets shot, a woman gets her shit ruined by a chainsaw, someone is crushed by a bus, and in which there are more examples of cannibalism than I can count (including a child devouring her father)? Ya' gotta love American morality."


This country has its priorities so fucking screwed up (I am not trying to condemn Dawn of the Dead, but just saying that out of all the things we worry about, something related to sexual and/or gender issues causes people to get into such a tizzy).

[PassingFair]

34. Come out of the FREEZER, you PENGUINS!

It had to be said.

:eyes:

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

42. Sweet Jesus! Rick Santorum Was Right!!

nt

[Unvanguard]

35. This school needs a good bit more "shak[ing]"

:eyes:

[IndyBob]

37. I never understand....

The fundies have no problem with dropping cluster bombs and whiskey pete on middle easterm children, or having their kids see violence on TV. But even a vague undertone of homosexuality is enough to get them matching in protest. Very strange moral priorities, to say the least.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

40. It's because it hits too close to home...

Most of them would never dream of dropping bombs on children; but sexual fantasy is in their human nature; and they've been taught to repress it...especially if it involves someone of the same sex.

[Norrin Radd]

38. It's ridiculous of AP to title this article in that manner.

In what way shape or form are these penguins gay? Bizarre. These homophobes need to get a grip on reality.

[FernBell]

39. This is so frickin' ridiculus. 200+ years since the Bill of Rights and we're still banning books.

[Lisa]

41. well, they'd better cancel the school trip to the zoo, or the waterfowl refuge

I've worked at a few such places, and all of them had same-sex animal couples which had formed bonds or even built nests together! (In the case of one pair of male swans, it was an enormous, blatant structure that took up the entire path, and the "boys" took turns sitting on it, honking triumphantly.) I don't ever recall there being a problem with explaining it to visiting children -- while some of those past toddler stage did ask which birds were males and which were females, they did not get flustered or say it was "bad" for these situations to exist. At another place, the all-female groups of hooded rats or hamsters who slept cuddled together only prompted "awwwwws", and pleas to be allowed to pet them.


p.s. I've read the book, and it's cute. It doesn't show the grownup penguins in a compromising situation (which is more than can be said for the real-life ducks in the pond across from my office right now ... I've observed numerous homosexual and heterosexual duck encounters there, and quite a number of them appear to be non-consensual, basically "rapes").

[AnneD]

43. I work with young kids,

we recently had a book fair, and it was a high lighted book. I took the time to read it and most of it would 'fly' over most kid's heads. The kids that would 'get it' would be in the situation and it would surely make them feel good about themselves. I have several kids being raised in gay households. The only problem I have had was figuring out who to call when there was a health issue and how to address them ( I settled on asking which dad I need to call and refer to them as parents). It felt a bit strange at first, but now it just rolls off the tongue. I try to be as natural as possible-and for these kids it was a blessing that brothers and sister are together. We chuckle sometimes at the predicaments (the guys managing sister's fairy princess birthday party), but God bless them, I didn't see too many folks stepping in to raise a family of 3 kids.

[yellowcanine]

46. Cripes! It's a true story about ANIMALS. morans! Cut me a friggin break.