The National Library Board in Singapore has announced it will destroy three sets of pro-LGBT books in libraries across the country, citing its “understanding of family” and claiming the books — written for children — are not “age appropriate.”
“In the zoo there are all kinds of animal families. But Tango’s family is not like any of the others.” That’s the simple description for And Tango Makes Three, a delightful children’s book with beautiful illustrations. The award-winning book written by a psychiatrist and a playwright tells the true story of a same-sex male penguin couple in New York’s Central Park Zoo who hatched then raised a baby penguin, Tango.Â
The American Library Association says the book is appropriate for pre-school children to those in the second grade, but really it’s an “all-ages” book — except in Singapore.
After one anti-gay activist, Teo Kai Loon, complained about And Tango Makes Three, The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption, and Who’s In My Family?: All About Our Families, the National Library Board in Singapore removed the books from the shelves — and just announced it will destroy them.
In a statement, the National Library Board claimed it “takes special care of our children’s collections to ensure they are age-appropriate. We take a cautious approach, particularly in books and materials for children. NLB’s understanding of family is consistent with that of the Ministry of Social and Family Development and the Ministry of Education.”
The NLB later stated it “does not exclude materials on alternative lifestyles.”
An anti-gay Facebook group, We are Against Pinkdot in Singapore, has rallied to get these books destroyed. It has sprouted to over 3500 members and it is now expanding to search out other gay themed books. Here’s a recent post by a member about a book written by infamous ex-gay therapist Richard Cohen:
Note that he thinks that advancing harmful “ex-gay” therapy gives the book a good moral story.
The book, by the way, is titled Alfie’s Home. The Yawning Bread blog wrote an excellent review of the 1993 anti-gay propaganda piece, noting it aims “to plant the idea that gay men are predators, and boys turn homosexual because their fathers were absent from their lives.” The review includes many illustrations and several pages of text that show the book portrays gays as pedophiles who cause children to become gay.
Hat tip: Yahoo News Singapore and Boing Boing