About the book: In this illustrated book, a grouchy queen tells her son that it is time for him to get married. “Very well, Mother, I must say, though, I’ve never cared much for princesses,” he sighs. He instead falls in love with Prince Lee, and they wed.
Excerpt: “What a wonderful prince!”
The controversy: In 2006, the parents of a Lexington, Mass., second grader protested that their son’s teacher read the fairy tale about gay marriage to the class without first warning parents. The book was used as part of a lesson about different types of weddings. “By presenting this kind of issue at such a young age, they’re trying to indoctrinate our children,” stated the parents. The incident renewed the efforts of Waltham, Mass.,-based Parents’ Rights Coalition to rid the state’s schools of books and lessons that advance the “homosexual agenda” in public schools. But U.S. District Court Judge Mark Wolf ruled in February that public schools are “entitled to teach anything that is reasonably related to the goals of preparing students to become engaged and productive citizens in our democracy.” Wolf said that the courts had decided in other cases that parents’ rights to exercise their religious beliefs were not violated when their children were exposed to contrary ideas in school.