A bunch of Texan fuddy-duddies have their chaps and holsters all in a bunch this week after a University of Texas student tried to bring her play about two male penguins raising a hatchling together to Austin area elementary schools. In response to this rabble-rousing, the Austin school district has canceled the play, marking the first time the district has ever done so to a UT student performance. Why, you ask? Well, first, let’s go to the Austin school district fine arts director, who said…
“The subject matter communicated in the play is a topic that Austin ISD believes should be examined by parents/guardians who will discuss with their elementary school age children at a time deemed appropriate by the parents/guardians,” Greg Goodman, the Austin school district’s fine arts director, said in a letter to UT’s Coleman Jennings, the head of the university’s youth theater program.
… which is the more polite way of saying:
“We define marriage very clearly in the state of Texas. So if you have a play that tries to push and promote a different marriage definition, which is clearly illegal, it leads students to ask questions about it, and it leads to the discussion of sex,” [president of the conservative Texas Values group, Jonathan] Saenz said.
To recap: The Austin school district canceled a play about two male penguins raising a baby (WHICH ACTUALLY HAPPENED, BTW), because they were concerned that the play — which was about penguins, who have a number of barriers to a state-recognized marriage that rank ahead of “Might be gay” — would promote a non-government-sanctioned form of marriage in Texas, and then all the kids who saw it would immediately be filled with an insatiable craving for knowledge about butt stuff. Because why promote an open discussion about an important social issue when you can jam cotton in kids’ ears and bury their heads in the sand, you know? That’s typically a great long-term solution.
Anyway, if all this sounds really familiar, it’s because it bears a striking resemblance to the plot of the Parks & Recreation episode “Pawnee Zoo,” where Leslie stages a wedding for two penguins who turn out to be gay and then the whole town spins right off the planet (as it is wont to do) as it deals with the fallout. The only real difference is that the episode of Parks is funny and lighthearted, like Caddyshack, and this real life situation is sad and awful, like Caddyshack 2.
In summation, penguins are the most divisive animals of our time. I mean, just look at this troublemaker.
Thanks to Brandon for the tip
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BUMBLEFOOT IS A THING AND NOT JUST THE NAME OF A GUNS N’ ROSES GUITARIST??! You blowing my mind, Cookie.
Dude, we’re talking about ELEMENTARY SCHOOL KIDS here.
Parents have the right to decide when and if they will teach their children about homosexuality, not TV bloggers and earnest college students. This will come as a great shock to earnest college students and TV bloggers, but there you go. You don’t get to raise other people’s kids.
And you know how evangelicals try to scare everyone into thinking that gay people are looking to indoctrinate and recruit children for their cause/deviant lifestyle? Way to actually live up to that crazy stereotype.
If parent’s don’t want their kids to see the play they can just choose not to have them attend. You do realize that telling your kid that there’s a “right” kind of marriage and a “wrong” kind of marriage counts is indoctrination too, right?
OK.
A) So give the parents the option of not having their kids participate.
B) You’re right. I don’t get to raise other people’s kids, but neither do a bunch of hyper-conservative Christians who want to teach them that being gay is a horrible sin and some dude in the sky hates them because of how they were born.
C) So what if it is for elementary school kids? It’s not like it shows the two penguins having sex (I hope not, at least). It’s trying to help explain something that is confusing to kids in a way they can wrap their heads around, and I imagine some parents wouldn’t mind having it done this way rather than having their kid shout “WHY DOES THAT BABY HAVE TWO DADDIES?” in the middle of the grocery store.
I had to watch a play about a dude getting walled up and murdered by a crazy person when I was in elementary school, nobody’s Supported The Family or whatever and said I shouldn’t be terrified forever
two guy penguins having a kid is the most Texas thing to worry about ever
So you can read books and perform plays that have heterosexual parents as characters, but as soon as there’s a gay couple there’s an agenda being pushed.
Shouldn’t all children know about homosexual pairings? Surely it can be done the same infantile/non-sexual manner as when explaining heterosexual pairings. “Sometimes a man and a man love each other very much…”. See? No sex, no smut.
Hobo Spices, Nah. If you tell kids that it’s OK for a man to love another man then obviously they will choose men instead of choosing women. I mean….who would turn down dong if they knew they could have it?
Because apparently that is how the neo-con mind works….and because apparently they all chose their sexuality. The vagina has to work REALLY HARD to overcome the appeal of wieners, parades and sassy hats.
@RomanCandle how in the fuck is showing a play with two male penguins raising a baby penguin indoctrinating the youth of America to be gay?
@dissident: Maybe we should ask Elmo?
(Too soon?)
I WANT A PENGUIN NAMED COOKIE!!!
This isn’t even veiled bigotry, the penguins aren’t ever said to be married. This hate group just doesn’t want gay people to be mentioned as existing, like somehow they’ll disappear.
It is in their rapture that all of those who have feelings sexually towards the same sex shall be raptured away to live under the Scientologist’s death planets.
This is particularly funny because Austin is demanding a recount because they accidentally elected a gay former priest to the school board….and he had the audacity to not flaunt it BEFORE the election (and after watching his interview I assure you….there is no way he hasn’t been flaunting it all his life).
It’s shit like this that I like to point to whenever Austinites talk about just how cool and liberal their town is, and how it’s the only place in Texas worth living. Fuck you, you pretentious assholes, once you get past the college students and recent grads, it’s still got the same mix of decent people and jerks as every other decent sized city in the country.
Parents will never get the whole “they’ll learn it on the streets then” thing, will they? Because it’s too uncomfortable for them to answer their bastards stupid questions, they will grow up thinking all sex is anal.
i’m not convinced that’s a bad thing
Texas wants to succeed form the United States… Please let them
Does the play even clearly state that the two penguins are gay? Maybe everyone is blowing this out of proportion and the student just wanted to do a anthropomorphic version of My Two Dads, which would be amazing.