Scott Maxwell: Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law leads to censorship of children’s picture book on penguins

To understand the duplicity of the book-banners in Florida, you only have to do two things:

Listen to what they claim their censorship laws will do.

Then look to see what actually happens.

In pushing this year to expand Florida’s so-called “Parental Rights” bill, the one critics have dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” since it censors materials that mention sexual orientation, sponsor Clay Yarborough got on the floor of the Florida Senate and said he simply wanted to stop pornographic filth from being handed out in public schools.

“There are materials that are pornographic. There are materials that depict sexual activity,” the Jacksonville Republican said. “School districts should be held accountable for that.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis has made similar comments. And if you take their words at face value, who can argue with that? Not me. I certainly don’t want public schools handing out porn.

But now look at some of the books that have actually been censored.

One is called “And Tango Makes Three.” It’s a children’s book about penguins — an award-winning picture book that doesn’t say a word about sex, porn or anything else.

Instead, it tells the feel-good, real-life story about two penguins in New York’s Central Park Zoo who came together to raise a parentless baby penguin.

Yet Lake County put “Tango” on its list of banned books for students below grade 4, simply because the two featured characters are both male. Male penguins, mind you.

I decided to do something many book-banners don’t — actually read the book for myself. So I bought it and found myself smiling as I read the story of two penguins who fascinated the zoo’s staff with their dedication to hatching an egg that neither of them had laid. The penguins waddle, sing and swim. Most of all, though, they nurture.

If guys like Yarborough, the Moms for Liberty or anyone else with a penchant for book-banning read a book like this and somehow end up thinking about porn or sex, they need serious help.

The real problem with this book seems to be that it tells the story of two same-sex animals doing heart-warming, family-themed things.

The authors of the book have teamed up with families of students in Lake County to sue the state and the school district for banning the book for students in kindergarten through third grade.

Lake County officials won’t say much about the incident, since they’re now facing a lawsuit. But a spokeswoman said the state’s “Parental Rights” law required them to do so.

The lawsuit seeks to make the award-winning picture book, which was written for children of all ages, available to all students in the district before the next school year begins. It also notes that, since state lawmakers recently expanded their “Don’t Say Gay” law, the authors expect the book to be banned for middle-schoolers as well as of July 1.

Districts all over Florida have said they’ve been forced to similarly censor other children’s books. The Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine censored one called “The Family Book,” simply because one line happens to state: “Some families have two moms or two dads.”

That sentence is a fact. But it’s a fact that triggers some snowflakes.

In Leon County, a mother has challenged a children’s book about tennis legend Billie Jean King that mentions King is gay. Among the mother’s objections, the Tallahassee Democrat reported, was that the student read the book and “brought questions to her mother” about what she had read.

Most good parents I know would see that as an opportunity for discussion. This mom saw it as an opportunity to complain.

Maybe some districts are overreacting with their censorship. But that was the entire point of this poorly and vaguely worded law — to cause panic and induce teachers and school officials to censor when in doubt. DeSantis’ appointees to the state Board of Education instructed public school employees to “err on the side of caution” under threat of penalty.

The “Tango” lawsuit notes that lawmakers intentionally didn’t explain what constitutes “classroom instruction,” prompting many districts to interpret that to mean general book availability in school libraries. Nor does the new law define terms like “gender identity,” which, taken literally, would seem to prohibit the identification of genders … which sounds nuts.

When a law is written intentionally vaguely, you can usually conclude one of two things: Either the authors were too incompetent to write a precise law. Or chaos and confusion was the point.

The state has refused to answer questions about what books should be banned, hoping districts will err on the side of censorship.

I asked the Department of Education a simple question: Does the state consider allowing third-grade students to read “And Tango Makes Three” to be a violation of the state’s new “Parental Rights in Education” act?

The department wouldn’t answer.

If I were a school board member or school superintendent, I would run every title by state officials — to ask them whether they believe it violates state law — before banning it. What kind of whackadoo state wouldn’t answer questions about what’s legal and what’s not, unless confusion and chaos was the point?

It’s also worth noting the “Parental Rights” act doesn’t talk about sexual activity, only “sexual orientation.” So those who say they support this law because they don’t want teachers talking about sex with kids are ignoramuses.

Sure, some books have no place in pubic schools. Pornography has long been banned. And there has long been a process in Florida for parents to challenge books. Lake County has one allowing parents to opt-out their own kids.

These new laws are like using a nuclear bomb to swat a fly — a bomb that takes out all sorts of collateral, including cartoon penguins, thanks to an imprecise design.

And in this case, that imprecision was incredibly intentional.