Penguins Popping Up in the Press

With each passing day, Superintendent Hatrick's decision to pull the book And Tango Makes Three from sixteen Loudoun County school libraries gains more attention from near and far. This morning brings stories from both coasts.

The Loudoun Times Mirror published a story about New York-based National free-speech groups weighing in on the decision.

Now, national anti-censorship groups have sent a letter to Schools Superintendent Edgar Hatrick III condemning his decision regarding "And Tango Makes Three."

"No one is being forced to read 'And Tango Makes Three,'" states the letter from the New York City-based National Coalition Against Censorship and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression. " But restricting student access violates the rights of children whose parents want their children to be taught tolerance and respect for diversity."

And while this is a local decision, the LA Times editorial published today makes clear that from coast to coast, this is a national issue and we are being closely watched:

The book certainly sends a message that two-father families exist, and quite happily. That's simply the truth, whether or not some people would like to ban gay ornithological unions. Too bad that, even though two committees favored keeping the book, the superintendent pulled it from all elementary shelves in the school district.

It takes common sense and sometimes bravery to nurture tolerance at school. There are teachers, school counselors and even students doing this every day. Leaders would be better off supporting their efforts than putting more requirements on their shoulders or forbidding true stories of acceptance.

Outsiders cannot solve this for us, they cannot fight for us. We must do this ourselves, in our own way, from within our community, in our own words. And so, in case you missed it the first time,

I firmly believe that And Tango Makes Three
should be returned to the shelves
of Loudoun County Public School Libraries

Ours is a dramatically diverse community in the shades of our skin, the languages in our homes, the ways that we worship and the makeup of our families. We are a beautiful bowl of confetti and that is more so in our public schools than in any other part of our community. We are preparing our students for their diverse future, not our homogeneous past. Our school libraries have books about families of all kinds, books that tell kids about the different colors, languages, places, and ways to worship. They are incomplete without books that talk about different families. The State of Virginia's own Family Life Education program, in kindergarten, recognizes this need to talk about different kinds of families:

K.4 The student will recognize that everyone is a member of a family and that families come in many forms.
Descriptive Statement: This includes a variety of family forms: traditional or two-parent families-mother, father, and children; extended families--relatives other than the immediate family living in the home; single-parent families; adoptive families; foster families; fan-families with stepparents; and blended fan-families--new families formed by the marriage of a man and woman with children from previous marriages.

K.5 The student will identify members of his or her own family.
Descriptive Statement: This refers to identifying the adult and child members of the student's family.

While the state may have its head in the sand by omitting same-gender parents from its list in section K4, the state cannot deny that some kids in our community will identify two moms or two dads as adult members of their family in their finger-paintings that will hang on classroom walls. My kids and your kids are going to know these kids and see these drawings and hear about their families. As kindergarteners they don't know about sex, but they know about love, and we teach them that love is what makes a family. And Tango Makes Three is about love that exists in our children's world and if we let this book be taken from our libraries then next it will be the lesson taken from the curriculum and the fingerpaintings from the walls. Lessons about love and fingerpaintings of family are sorely needed in this world, and in Loudoun we can do our part by putting Tango back in our public school libraries.