Homosexual Penguins

Our children attend the Loundoun County Public Schools in northern Virginia. Letters to the editor regarding the book "And Tango Makes Three" have been a weekly topic for discussion here. In fact, the actions of the superintendant of Loundoun County Schools even made it on ABC's "The View." Dr. Edgar Hatrick made the decision to remove the book from elementary school shelves' regular circulation. In case you are unfamiliar with the story, the book is written about two male penguins living in the Central Park Zoo in New York, who make a nest together and then raise a baby penguin together after zoo workers put an abandoned egg in their nest. This children's book is based on true events. Now parents are up in arms about the actions of Dr. Hatrick. I tend to be on the more liberal side of this argument, and I really think that if my six-year-old came home with the book, we would read it together and enjoy the sweet story. After all, anyone who has seen the movie "March of the Penguins" knows that ALL male penguins care for and raise the babies because the mothers are busy getting food. Some people will obviously read more into the story than perhaps they need to. It does not endorse a certain lifestyle among humans, it is simply relaying a sweet story of two penguins who saved an abandoned baby peguin. I think parents need to be able to make the choice about whether or not their child will read the story, and what and how much you want to make of it. I don't think the book needs to be pulled from the library shelves. Some parents are so quick to make a big deal out of things and so eager to push their beliefs on others that they put pressure on educators who then end up doing things that are maybe not the wisest things. So, I don't blame Dr. Hatrick for his knee-jerk reaction to the complaint from a few parents, but next time, maybe he will go about it with a little more calm and common sense. As far as parents are concerned, too many times parents make things way more complicated than they need to be. Read the book, or choose not to, but don't tell be that I can't read the book and discuss it with my child.