Children’s Book About Gay Penguins Raising Young Get Pulled From Libraries


A children’s book about two gay penguins raising young is being pulled from libraries. And Tango Makes Three is about two male penguins who raise a chick at the Central Park Zoo. While this is acceptable in the U.S., those in Singapore disagree. The book is being removed and destroyed by state-run libraries in Singapore, the New York Daily News reports.

The National Library Board in the China city asserts that it’ll also pull other books reflective of homosexuals. Those books are The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption, a story about a lesbian couple, and Who’s In My Family: All About Our Families, according to The Australian.

Twenty-six libraries are run by the National Library Board. The organization says it will “pulp” all three titles. Singapore’s Information Minister Dr. Yaacob Ibrahim supports the decision, saying:

“The prevailing norms, which the overwhelming majority of Singaporeans accept, support teaching children about conventional families, but not about alternative, non-traditional families, which is what the books in question are about.”

Not everyone is in agreement on the board’s decision, however. An online petition had collected thousands of signatures in addition to an open letter urging the board not to remove and destroy the books. Some are even ready to boycott the 26 libraries as a direct result of the gay penguins book — as well as the other two — for being taken off shelves.

Author Donald Low of Hard Choices: Challenging the Singapore Consensus, says there’s nothing he sees as significant about Singapore objecting to the book. Hard Choices is a book about recommending policy reforms in the city. As a symbol of protest last November, Low dropped out of the Singapore Writers’ Festival.

Low says of the three books being removed by the National Library Board:

“I see no evidence of a significant segment of Singapore society objecting to these books being in our public libraries, even if the majority of Singaporeans are conservative.”

Religious conservatives are speaking out more when it comes to gay rights. Gay sex is a crime in Singapore.

Homosexuality is considered a crime in a number of conservative countries, and those who are gay that reside in those parts of the world keep their lifestyle well-hidden.

The Inquisitr has written on a vast number of stories dealing with the controversy of homosexuality among those who oppose it. An article about a publisher in Utah canceled a book when the author had written about his boyfriend in his bio.

[Image via New York Daily News]

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