There wasn't a lot of love for "Buster's Sugartime," an innocuously titled children's book that tangentially featured" gasp and horror " same-sex parents.
According to the Tulsa World, parents asked the Union Public Schools Board of Education's Materials Review Committee to review the book in October 2009.
After the committee voted to keep the book on the shelf, parents Don and Mary Danz appealed the ruling, saying the reference to two moms was not appropriate for elementary kids.
"Buster's Sugartime," by Marc Brown, is based on the PBS series "Postcards from Buster," which features an anthropomorphic rabbit. The book specifically comes from a 2005 episode where Buster visits Vermont (that safe haven of hippies everywhere) to see how maple syrup is made.
While there, he hangs out with kids who have two mommies.
Don Danz, who is an attorney, argued that the book shouldn't be removed because of a religious or moral view (of course not), but because it "advocated a practice that is not recognized under Oklahoma's Constitution," according to the World.
Union schools superintendent Cathy Burden argued for the book, saying if the board used Danz's logic, then many more books would have to be removed from the shelves.
"If legality in Oklahoma was an issue we were to use in criteria, then we would have to get rid of a lot of books in our library referencing things like pirates and robbers and cattle rustlers," she said.
And who doesn't love reading about a little cattle rustling? Board member Ed Payton echoed that reasoning.
"I recently re-read a book I first read when I was in elementary school," he said. "The main characters were engaged in burglary, theft and criminal fraud, and we would have to take that book off the shelf."
The book?
"Huck Finn," he said. And Payton FTW.
The World reported that the board of education ruled 3-1 last week to keep the book in the library.
