An estimated 350 people including parents and children gathered at a reading event held at the atrium of the National Library Building atrium this afternoon to protest the library board’s move to cull and destroy three children’s titles for depicting gay parents.

Co-organizers Germaine Eliza Ong said on Facebook: ‘We believe that we and our children should be able to access a diverse range of reading materials’.

Organizers had obtained a police permit for the event where they had set up a temporary mini-library where copies of ‘And Tango Makes Three’, ‘Who’s In My Family?’ and other books which feature different family structures were available for loan to the public.

The three banned titles include ‘The White Swan Express’ which features children adopted by four straight, gay, mixed-race and single parents. The multi-award winning ‘And Tango Makes Three’ is based on the real life-inspired story of two male penguins raising a baby chick at New York’s Central Park Zoo while ‘Who’s In My Family’ discusses different types of families, including references to gay couples.

The National Library Board’s (NLB) decision was reportedly spurred by a complaint from a single library user who shared the library’s decision and response on the Facebook group ‘We Are Against Pinkdot in Singapore’ which quickly went viral. He wrote that the library had removed the book within two days of receiving the complaint and urged others to do the same should they find any offensive books.

In a statement on Wednesday, the library board suggested that being gay and family values are incompatible: ‘Young children are among our libraries’ most frequent visitors. Many of them browse books in our children’s sections on their own. As such, NLB takes a pro-family and cautious approach in identifying titles for our young visitors.’

The library on Thursday declared that the books will be pulped and has further turned down offers from at least one individual to purchase all copies of the banned books, according to The Straits Times today.

The news has since dominated local headlines, blogs and social media for the past week with local writers, parents, and the public weighing in.

Writer Ovidia Yu announced her resignation from the steering committee of the Singapore Writers Festival – of which the NLB was a programme partner – while four other well-known writers, Dr Gwee Li Sui, Adrian Tan, Prem Anand and Felix Cheong, pulled out of a panel discussion organized by the library to be held today, leading to the cancellation of the event.

Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng, who’s a Man Booker Prize nominee and Man Asian Literary Prize winner, wrote on Facebook that he has informed the library that the library’s actions has made it difficult for him to support its literary projects or to be associated with them. He will also be donating his cheque from the library for the use of excerpts from his book ‘The Gift of Rain’ for an anthology to a LGBT group.

Rainbow Parents, a local support group for gay parents, said in a statement: ‘We are appalled an established and esteemed library like NLB would choose to remove and destroy books because of complaints from a select few. The best libraries carry many controversial books and it is the parents’ responsibility to provide guidance and encourage children to read with a critical mind.

‘These books exist to educate children about the diversity of life on our planet. NLB’s act sends an extremely negative message to all children in uncommon family structures that nothing apart from the prescribed model is acceptable.’

Alan Seah, who adapted Penguin Books’s familiar logo to feature two penguins and a baby penguin (#freemylibrary) became a meme when similarly outraged people shared it on their social media profiles, told Gay Star News: ‘We are seeing what happens when government agencies pander to one group of people at the expense of another, while at the same time sacrificing the principles we expect them to be upholding. It is heartening to see that people of all stripes – especially parents – are outraged.’

Leow Yangfa, a gay social worker and editor of gay anthology ‘I Will Survive’ told Gay Star News: ‘I can’t speak as a parent, but as an uncle of school-going children growing up in our increasingly diverse and complex world; I can imagine parents’ anxieties about wanting to "protect" their children from any perceived harm. But we’re also forgetting children’s natural curiosity and ability to observe the world around them.

The uncle of five nieces added: ‘Families in all shapes and forms are a reality. What are we teaching our children by banning these books from the NLB? That it’s not alright to read about them? That it’s ok to pretend such functioning family arrangements don’t exist? What kind of adults would they grow up to become?’