Singapore Bans Gay Penguin Book

Foolmewunz

Grammar Resistance Leader, TLA Dictator
Foolmewunz
Joined
Aug 11, 2006
Messages
41,468
Location
Pattaya, Thailand
In one of the greatest faux democracies in the world, Big Brother is saving us from all turning into gay penguins.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-...aign=Feed:+se/en+(AJE+Sony+Ericsson+RSS+feed)

I've been following this for a while. Not only have they removed the two copies of this book from their nation-statewide library system, but more important, they are not allowing someone to buy them or will not donate them to other libraries.

They are going to "pulp" them. This is obviously a largely symbolic move, as the book isn't banned in Singapore, just from the public libraries. Even in the fundie-driven USA, the libraries and school districts haven't succumbed to this kind of pressure. Every case involving this title that I've read about has ended with the librarians and the library boards essentially telling the puritan bigots to go stuff themselves. But in Singapore, where if you ask someone where to find an underaged prostitute the response is "Boy or girl? Vietnamese? Fillipino? Burmese? Thai? Cambodian?", they're going to protect "family values", by golly.
 
Foolmewunz said:
Even in the fundie-driven USA, the libraries and school districts haven't succumbed to this kind of pressure. Every case involving this title that I've read about has ended with the librarians and the library boards essentially telling the puritan bigots to go stuff themselves.
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Sorry, but libraries and schools have succumbed to pressure in the US regarding banning books (and they continue to do so). At the very least, they can choose not to stock books (not truly a "ban" as any head librarian usually has discretion in ordering) either in anticipation of protest or due to preemptive pressure. The US definitely doesn't qualify for the high horse in this regard - as a whole, anyway.
 
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Babbylonian said:
Sorry, but libraries and schools have succumbed to pressure in the US regarding banning books (and they continue to do so). At the very least, they can choose not to stock books (not truly a "ban" as any head librarian usually has discretion in ordering) either in anticipation of protest or due to preemptive pressure. The US definitely doesn't qualify for the high horse in this regard - as a whole, anyway.
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I was speaking of this particular book. The history is quite interesting as I expected to find that the libraries and schools had rolled over from AFA type pressure, but they really haven't.
 
Oh, a kid's book about a gay penguin. See, Penguin is a publisher, and I kept thinking, "ok, but what's the gay book by Penguin about, geeze."
 
The back story is that apparently in the past they've pulled books because of complaints (which listening to the head of the National Library Board could just have easily been self-generated), but they'll either sell them or donate them to other libraries who want to carry them. The Singaporean government really does have this stupid Big Brother image they try to promote. Not the image we all envision from the book 1984, but the type of caring image the government in 1984 was trying to foist on the people. So I can see how they might want to limit controversial books. I disagree, but I can see how Singaporeans might accept a "that's too raunchy for our state run libraries, tsk tsk" attitude.

But rather than sell or donate them, they've announced they will pulp them. When they were asked about the several new offers to take the books off their hands, the head of the board responded that their decision was made and they're not turning back. So the object lesson is that other books on teen sex, drugs, etc.... might be okay for less lah-di-dah libraries to carry, but books selling on us gay being acceptable are so dangerous they need to be destroyed.
 
Gawdzilla said:
But now I'm seeing "A Penguin bareback". :(
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Consider "Mr Popper's Penguins". All those penguins. And poppers, too. Clearly a dangerous book that advocates drug-fueled cross-species gay penguin orgies!

And I have grave suspicions of any farmer who calls his pig "Babe".
 
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