And Tango Makes Three recounts two male chinstrap penguins in the Central Park Zoo who become parents when a zookeeper gives them an egg to hatch. The book has been frequently challenged for years and faced international pulping in Singapore, but longstanding U.S. precedent protected public library access. In 2023 the book was among thousands removed from shelves nationwide as new legal strategies aim to upend a 1982 Supreme Court rule that officials cannot remove books merely for disagreeing with their viewpoint. Local complaints have labeled the book indoctrination, while review committees have defended its educational value.
In 2023, our book was one of thousands pulled from library shelves around the country, and as we write, an evolving legal strategy being used to defend many such bans threatens to upend decades of precedent preserving the right to read. The danger this doctrine poses to free speech should worry us all-even those who would rather their children not learn about gay penguins.
A decade ago, when the government of Singapore announced its decision to pulp every copy of our picture book, And Tango Makes Three,in the nation's libraries, we felt profoundly lucky. Not for the pulping-that was alarming-but for the fact that the First Amendment guaranteed that this could never happen in America. We're not feeling quite so lucky anymore. In Tango, a pair of male chinstrap penguins in the Central Park Zoo become parents when a kindhearted zookeeper gives them an egg to hatch.
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