Two to Tango

In our house, we love penguins. When the girls were young, their schools would schedule trips to the nearby “Biodome,” which has a great penguin area. One of my daughters was thrilled beyond belief when a penguin decided to play with her. It swam up to the glass, right near her face, and she put her little hand up, as if to pet it. Then, as she walked back and forth in front of the huge display, that same penguin swam right beside her. I held my breath for the inevitable, frantic, pleading question… “Can we have a penguin, Mommy?!” When it came, she helpfully informed me that it could live in our bathtub. Believe me, the thought had crossed MY mind, too! Last year, we watched “March of the Penguins,” as a family, and we each loved it as much as the next. We’ve been eagerly awaiting the opening of “Happy Feet” (and truth be told, I’ve had a “Happy Feet” background on my laptop for months already!) … but it has come to my attention today that penguins are making some people less than happy. If you are unfamiliar with it, there is a book called “And Tango Makes Three.” Recommended for children aged four to eight, it is based on the true story of a pair of chinstrap penguins who incubated and hatched a chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo. Well, the happy train derails for some folks when they find out that the penguins are both male. Yes, horror of horrors – gay penguins. Named Roy and Silo, these males became a couple and stayed loyal to one another for six years. They displayed all the classic signs – known in penguin-speak as “ecstatic behavior” – of any other pair. They entwined necks, vocalized, all of it. Evidently, after some time, they tried to “hatch” a stone. They took turns sitting on it, to no avail. The zookeeper noted their behavior and capitalized on an opportunity. A male/female pair rejected a fertilized egg and the zookeeper gave it to Roy and Silo. They cared for it until it hatched. The chick was named Tango and all three penguins still reside at the zoo. Some time last year, I believe, Silo dumped Roy and took up with a female named Scrappy. Sorry, Roy… love can be rough. In spite of the ultimate demise of the relationship, I think this story is incredibly charming. Some people in Shiloh, Illinois disagree with me. They want the book removed from the children’s section of the school library. They suggest it be placed in the section for more mature readers and even go so far as to recommend parental permission be required before this title can be borrowed. Are they insane? These are PENGUINS. The artwork is adorable and the story is – whether you like it or not – TRUE. This wasn’t fabricated to make a statement about homosexuality. It wasn’t created to cause a sensation or to titillate. It’s FACT. Why do people have such a problem with the truth? It is what it is. In the article I read, a mother says that she was unaware of the contents of the book when her daughter brought it home but, at the point where the story alludes to the two penguins “being in love,” she refused to finish reading to her child. Honestly. I’d like to know how she explained that move. Did she tell her daughter that it was “bad” for the two penguins to love each other? THAT would be a great message, wouldn’t it? I sincerely try to appreciate all viewpoints on an issue but there is absolutely no part of me that can understand taking this book from its intended audience. I’ve been searching the internet for response to this work and I read an interesting piece where one of the authors (an assistant professor of psychiatry at Columbia and Cornell) mentioned that, at several live readings, the children were really just interested to know where the egg came from… they were not the least bit concerned with the penguins’ gender. That wasn’t an important part of the story. I would like to suggest that this book has another message… and no one seems to be discussing it. The use of penguins could be a gentle way to convey that, sometimes, parents just can’t take care of a child. And, sometimes, those parents need to find other people with a whole lot of love in their hearts to help them. Those people might not represent the nuclear family but it doesn’t mean they can’t take that child under their wing and bring them up in a world that accepts and values them. I think this book could offer “chosen” children further reassurance of how very much they are wanted. But it seems, in some places, that message is destined to be silenced. I suppose if someone wishes to shelter a child forever from the different ways that people love each other, then that person won’t be able to stomach PENGUIN love either. It’s their right to believe what they believe… just as it is my right to feel a little bit sad about the whole damn thing.