(Headline USA) A school district in northeast Florida must allow children to access obscene and pornographic gay books, per a court order.
Per the court’s decision the School Board of Nassau County must restore access to three dozen titles including “And Tango Makes Three,” a children’s picture book based on a story about gay penguins raising a chick together.
The two male authors of the gay penguin book were plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the district.
It was not apparent that either man had fathered a child in the district at the time of the suit.
The suit was one of several challenges to a Florida’s anti-grooming law which placed restrictions on children accessing pornographic or obscene material.
Last month six major publishers and several authors filed a federal lawsuit in Orlando arguing that the anti-grooming law violated the First Amendment rights of publishers, authors and students.
“Fighting unconstitutional legislation in Florida and across the country is an urgent priority,” Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster and Sourcebooks said in a statement regarding their challenge to restrictions on obscene and pornographic material.
Among the books removed in Nassau County were titles by Toni Morrison, Khaled Hosseini, Jonathan Safran Foer, Jodi Picoult and Alice Sebold.
Under the settlement the school district agreed that the gay penguin book would be returned to its library.
“Students will once again have access to [these] books,” Lauren Zimmerman, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, said in a statement.
Brett Steger, an attorney for the school district, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
