Singapore Destroys Gay Penguin Book: Cites Family Values
Ruchika Tulshyan, Forbes
#FreeMyLibrary
As a child, I would spend hours at Singapore’s National Library, losing myself in faraway worlds through my favorite activity – reading. Some of my best memories of growing up in Singapore are hidden among those tall shelves.
So I was deeply distressed to hear Singapore’s National Library Board (NLB) will destroy three children’s books that are not “pro-family.”
The books in question? And Tango Makes Three is about two male penguins who adopt a baby and behave as though they are a couple. The other is The White Swan Express: A Story About Adoption, about a lesbian couple’s attempt to adopt a baby from China. There’s also Who’s In My Family: All About Our Families, about unconventional family set-ups including same-sex and single parents.
Despite criticism from Singaporeans and even international media for banning the books, the NLB has held firm in its decision.
“NLB takes a pro-family and cautious approach in identifying titles for our young visitors,” says a statement on their Facebook page. “We have a collection of more than five million books. In selecting children’s books, we sieve through the contents and exercise our best judgement.”
Can you pretend people don’t exist?
The decision to ban books contradicts Singapore’s status as a first-world, tolerant, liberal Asian power.
Singapore has long upheld religious tolerance and racial harmony as a core tenet of the country. But to pretend a section of society doesn’t exist, reeks of intolerance to me. To “shelter” children from a reality, to raise them intolerant of people unlike them is dangerous in a society as multi-ethnic as Singapore. As these very kids go on to become our future leaders, they will only accept and promote people like them. We risk rendering an entire growing section of the population, invisible, if we continue down this path.
