March of the Gay Penguins: Penguinphobia Lands in Iowa

As temperatures dipped below zero in Iowa, one of the first Farmers’ Almanac indicators that hell is on its way to freezing over (Thank Man for exacerbating Global Warming), Penguinphobia finally hit the Heartland.

“Chicken Little, the Gay Penguins have landed. Run for your life before it’s too late…”

Despite arctic temperatures forecast this evening, the Ankeny school board plans on holding a public debate regarding a recent challenge of the children’s book “And Tango Makes Three.” The challenge was issued by Cindy and James Daucus after their kindergartner child checked the book out, completely unaware of the gay penguin subtext.

Exhibit A, or the children’s book in question written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, is based on the true story of Roy and Silo, two male penguins in New York’s Central Park Zoo, who formed a couple for six years. Not that there is anything wrong with that; although the Zoo refused to recognize them as a couple.

The dynamic-penguin-duo, cursed by nature and penguinphobic onlookers, tried to hatch a rock resembling an egg, but to no avail. Eventually the zookeepers realized what the dirty birds were up to and gave them an egg from a heterosexual penguin couple. Roy and Silo were successful in their efforts and helped hatch a healthy young chick, a female named “Tango” by the zookeepers – despite the name’s sexually suggestive connotations (e.g. “Last Tango in Paris”).

(Warning: watching the video clip below may lead viewers to question thier own sexuality and/or species identification.)

Under the Pink Carpet and Gay Penuins

And now the Daucus’ are taking on the Ankeny school district for exposing children to the gay penguin agenda. They asked the school board last month to shelve the book in a the parents-only section of the East Elementary school library (these sections even exist in an elementary school?), claiming the book “normalizes” homosexuality to children too young to understand the “risky lifestyle.”

After all, everyone knows that gay penguin relationships, even asexual gay penguins like Roy and Silo, is a gateway lifestyle that leads to riskier lifestyles and sexual behaviors such as gay porcupine or gay crocodile sex.

If parents are truly concerned about schools and teachers slipping in literature that promotes the gay penguin agenda without a suitable foil, they should suggest piggybacking (metaphorically speaking of course) “And Tango Makes Three” with the film “Happy Feet,” which provides the audience with an alternative subtext of gay penguinphobia. Happy Feet, who was born different than the rest of the penguin community is ostracized and nearly killed for being “different.”

As far as the Daucus’ are concerned, I would suggest not reading your own agenda into a piece of literature and read the story as what it is supposed to be: a story. Unless it is too late and their child has already moved on to the homosexually repressed crocodile in “Peter Pan,” whose gay biological alarm keeps ticking in his hot pursuit for the never-aging lusty young chap Peter.

Truth be known, if you read into anything hard enough, you could probably read a gay subtext, penguin or otherwise, into just about any piece of literature, including the following classic texts adopted by several districts across the nation.

Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck: This is obviously an allegory about two closeted, homosexual men. Farmhands, George and Lenny, are trying to earn money to buy their own share of the American Dream, which consists of the two of them buying a house and living happily ever after – while George gets to “tend the rabbits.” While George is able to sweat his latent homosexual desires out through hard work, Lenny does not possess the self-actualization skills needed to deal with his inner-homosexuality, thus causing him to unknowingly act out in fits of heavy petting and violence against innocent puppies and young ladies. In the end, when George realizes he cannot save Lenny from himself, nor can he have Lenny for himself, he takes matters in his own hands during the novel’s climactic ending.

The Odyssey, by Homer: A story about a Greek man’s 10-year return to home (after a 10-year war in Troy mind you) aboard a ship with dozens of sexually repressed men? I will let you, dear reader, connect the dots here. Why else would Odysseus pass up immortality with Calypso, one of the most beautiful goddesses of mythology? On a Freudian level, it only makes sense that wise Odysseus, despite the plethora of prophecies handed to him on his journey home, would keep making stupid mistakes which caused him to lose all of his men. He had to somehow destroy the guilt his men personified for indulging in his homosexual desires while away from Penelope.

Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare: While most readers and audience members get caught up in the young-lust affair between Rome and Juliet, they miss out on the other characters, Mercutio and Balthasar, who yearn for young Romeo’s acquaintance. Meructio, who willingly took a sword and died for his good friend Romeo, clearly showed his affections for Romeo. Meanwhile, Romeo’s man, Balthasar’s desire for Romeo is more subtle. Not until he enters near the play’s end dressed in riding boots and perfunctorily announces Juliet’s death to her husband, that we see his loyalties to Romeo go beyond mere kinship.

Update: Roy (left) and Silo (right) were last seen leading a Gay Penguin Pride March across Antarctica, while their daughter Tango (not pictured) is currently pursuing a doctoral degree at Harvard University in English.