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Book Censorship – Ankeny, Iowa being asked to put on ICE, the Gay Penguin Book, And Three Makes One

Posted on Nov 18, 2008

I’ve always liked books. As a young boy growing up in a family without much money that library card was my passport to a world that I thought would always be outside of my reach. For Christmas Mom always gifted a year’s subscription to Boy’s Life, the scouting magazine. Each month I could look forward to the story of bravery with someone being rescued from falling through the winter ice at the pond or surviving while stranded on a rubber raft at sea. As a young lad my life was full of ideas about exploring and adventure. Reading got me through those long hours between the tides of Bristol Harbor.

Now I’m not gay and neither is my mother, but what about those kids who have gay partner parents? What are they supposed to read that tells them they are normal and even though they have untraditional parents, as a family they still have a right to be happy?

There’s a little town north of Des Moines, Iowa named Ankeny. In the library is a book titled, And Tango Makes Three. Wikipedia describes it as well as I could so I’ll quote their description of the book.

And Tango Makes Three is a 2005 children's book written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson and illustrated by Henry Cole. The book is based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two male Chinstrap Penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo who for six years formed a couple. The book follows part of this time in the penguins' lives. This book aims to send the reader the message that it is okay to be in, or know someone who has, a "non-traditional" family.

The pair were observed trying to hatch a rock that resembled an egg. When zookeepers realized that Roy and Silo were both male, it occurred to them to give them the second egg of a mixed-sex penguin couple, a couple which had previously been unable to successfully hatch two eggs at once. Roy and Silo hatched and raised the healthy young chick, a female named "Tango" by keepers, together as a family.

There’s a controversy brewing in Ankeny over children being able to read about Roy and Silo. Some fear this book if read will corrupt children into believing non-traditional families are … hmmmm… alright? Have the right to live happily? Have rights to be left alone? I’m not really sure what the fear is here but it’s an odd fear for grownups to be have and to express publicly.

I say that because what about some kid, boy or girl, who lives in a nontraditional family and wants to know that they are alright, acceptable, not an alien, not strange and don’t deserve the taunting they regularly get on the school yard from the kids of those families who believe in and preach censorship? Don’t they deserve to know their passport to a better understanding of the world is in the library card tucked inside their Red Sox baseball cap? I do. Leave the book on the shelf and leave the poor kids alone. If they don’t want to read it they won’t. If you want your child to grow up with a narrow view of the world keep them in front of the television watching narrow minded sitcoms. And by the way, if it’s so bad to read this book what were you doing reading it?