The book And Tango Makes Three, based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two male Chinstrap Penguins in New York’s Central Park Zoo, suffered its own share of controversy when it was released in 2005. The American Library Association reports that the book was the most challenged book of 2006, 2007, and 2008 briefly dropping to 2nd place in 2009 before returning to the Number 1 in 2010.
Because of unwarranted freak-outs by misinformed parents many school districts made decisions to remove it from their libraries OR put it into “restricted” sections.
A list of these and other cases of the book being “shelved” is available on Wikipedia along with the original sources.
Now, a play about Roy, Silo and Tango, And Then Came Tango, has the Austin school district in a tizzy! Written by Emily Freeman, a University of Texas graduate student, the play had already been performed for second-graders at Lee Elementary School last month before officials pulled the plug. Ten performances of And Then Came Tango suddenly came to a screeching halt. Ms. Freeman said her play about the penguin family is intended to show audiences that there are “different families” and is meant to share the message of equality and love.
“We define marriage very clearly in the state of Texas. So if you have a play that tries to push and promote a different marriage definition, which is clearly illegal, it leads students to ask questions about it, and it leads to the discussion of sex,” said Jonathan Saenz, President of the conservative Texas Values group in an interview with The Statesmen.
For the full story, visit TIME Magazine.
In an interview with The New York Times, co-author of the original book, Justin Richardson, said, “We wrote the book to help parents teach children about same-sex parent families. It’s no more an argument in favor of human gay relationships than it is a call for children to swallow their fish whole or sleep on rocks.”
Straight people who obsess about the sexuality (Brian Brown, Rick Santorum, etc.) of LGBT people and make it their life’s goal to stop it are just absurd!
Tommy Karr 