December 28, 2006

Some of my best friends are penguins

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Went to the children's bookstore, bought 'And Tango Makes Three' for my 6yo niece. Nice illustrations of penguins in Central Park Zoo. 'Touching and delightful variation on a major theme' - Maurice Sendak. 'Will delight young readers and open their minds' - John Lithgow. Sit down with said niece and my little daughters. The boy penguins, Roy and Silo, 'didn't spend much time with the girl penguins...instead Roy and Silo wound their necks around each other.."They must be in love"' Non-bigot zoo-keeper slips them an egg, which they incubate, hatch and parent. 'Tango was the very first penguin in the zoo to have two daddies.' So turns out the book is straight propaganda for homosexual adoption with the elegant twist that you can't know that until you read it. (By the way the happy gay penguin marriage was broken by a female called Scrappy tho that's not mentioned in the book).

So this is an impressively multilayered lie aimed at children. There's no evidence that the animals were homosexual. Male penguins incubate eggs. One of the penguins mated with a female. The animals were in an utterly artificial setting. The book is packaged to deceive.

By the way, can I have the beautiful word 'gay' back? It's a family name in my family, short for Grace. Lying to children is neither gay nor gracious.