“And Tango Makes Three” authors sue Florida school district over Don’t Say Gay law

The authors of And Tango Makes Three have joined with six students and their parents to sue a Florida school district where access to the children’s book has been restricted under the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.

The suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida against the Lake County School District and the Florida Board of Education, seeks to restore access to the book and a permanent injunction preventing the state from enforcing the “Parental Rights in Education Act,” known as “Don’t Say Gay,” according to the New York Times.

Related:

Florida schools ban book about gay penguins in reaction to Don’t Say Gay law

Schools are banning innocuous books about LGBTQ+ people to comply with the anti-LGBTQ+ law.

Late last year, Lake County School District banned And Tango Makes Three, along with two other children’s books featuring LGBTQ+ characters, for students in kindergarten through third grade, citing “content regarding sexual orientation/gender identification prohibited” under “Don’t Say Gay.”

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The law, signed by Florida governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis in March 2022, initially banned classroom instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in grades K­–3 and limited it in grades 4–12. In May, DeSantis signed a bill expanding the law to ban discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in all grades and making it easier for parents to get books banned from school libraries.   

The complaint filed earlier this week describes the law as “vague and overbroad.” It claims that “Don’t Say Gay” violates students’ First Amendment right to receive information and Tango authors Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s free speech rights. It also claims that Richardson and Parnell’s reputations have been damaged by suggesting that the book “contains sexual or age-inappropriate material,” the Times reports.

Tango “is factually accurate, non-vulgar and non-obscene; ‘Tango’ had previously stood on school library shelves; and ‘Tango’ was restricted for illegitimate, narrowly partisan and political reasons,” the suit states.

“Our book has been banned because Tango has two dads,” Richardson told the Times. He compared the book, which is based on the true story of two male penguins who raised a chick together at the Central Park Zoo, to another children’s book, Make Way for Ducklings, which is about a male and female duck and their brood. “Both show water birds becoming parents and caring for their young,” he said. “There is no sexual implication or language in either — but only one has been banned.”

Faith E. Gay, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the Tango suit, said that the Florida law “permits, and frankly encourages, viewpoint discrimination, and that’s exactly what happened in its application.”

“Whatever one believes about the value of respecting two-mom or two-dad families,” Richardson said, “there is no substance to any claim that it’s harmful or inappropriate at any age for children to learn that we exist.”

The Tango suit is the latest example of efforts to push back against a wave of book bans primarily targeting works by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color.

In April 2022, a group of residents in Llano, Texas, sued the county, arguing that removing books from public libraries violated their First Amendment rights. Last month, Penguin Random House and PEN America joined authors and parents to sue a Florida school district over its ban on books which, the suit claimed, disproportionately targets titles by “non-white and LGBTQ+ authors as well as those exploring racial and queer identities.”

Earlier this month, a group of Arkansas parents sued their local county judge, quorum court, library board, and interim library director for censoring LGBTQ+ books. And last week, Illinois became the first state to outlaw book bans when Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signed a bill that would defund libraries for removing books based on someone’s personal or partisan disapproval.