This story really cracks me up. It seems that the world is suddenly overflowing with gay penguins. At Central Park Zoo in New York, there are two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who appear to be in a gay relationship. They nuzzle each other and behave just like other sets of mates. They have sex with each other. When the zoo put female penguins in to entice them to mate with them, they had no interest at all. But they apparently make great parents:
At one time, the two seemed so desperate to incubate an egg together that they put a rock in their nest and sat on it, keeping it warm in the folds of their abdomens, said their chief keeper, Rob Gramzay. Finally, he gave them a fertile egg that needed care to hatch. Things went perfectly, and a chick, Tango, was born.
For the next 2 1/2 months they raised Tango, keeping her warm and feeding her food from their beaks until she could go out into the world on her own. Gramzay is full of praise. "They did a great job," he said.
But they're not the only gay penguins, not by a longshot. The Bremerhaven Zoo in Germany seems inundated with them:
Keepers at the zoo ordered DNA tests to be carried out on the penguins after they had been mating for years without producing any chicks.
It was only then they realised that six of the birds were living in homosexual partnerships.
Director Heike Kueck said that the zoo hoped to see some baby penguins in the coming months.
She said that the birds had been mating for years and one couple even adopted a stone that they protected like an egg.
The German zookeepers, however, wanted some babies around the place. So like any good mother, they tried to tempt the queer birds into giving up their wayward proclivities: they imported 4 female Swedish penguins. Because everyone knows that Swedish chicks are hot. And just in case, they've got a backup plan:
In case they show no interest, the zoo has also flown in two new male penguins "so that the ladies don't miss out altogether", Kueck added.
Well, of course. You don't fly hot Swedish chicks into town for an orgy and then not get them laid (cue the bad porno music - bow chicka bow bow). Actually, some gay rights groups in Germany protested the plan and the zoo decided to scrap the whole thing. The letter from the protestors to the zoo actually referred to "forced harassment through female seductresses." Swedish female seductresses, no less. But wait, there's more. It's hit Japan too:
A research group led by Keisuke Ueda, professor of behavioral ecology at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, found about 20 same-sex pairs at 16 major aquariums and zoos, Kyodo news agency said.
Studies on these gay penguin marriages, by the way, show that they haven't affected any of the straight penguin marriages in the same aquariums and zoos. The straight penguins have continued to mate and raise their kids despite the presence of the avian sodomites.
Update: I didn't see this before I wrote this post, but the New York Times reports that some social conservatives are using the film March of the Penguins as fodder to argue for "family values":
At a conference for young Republicans, the editor of National Review urged participants to see the movie because it promoted monogamy...
"March of the Penguins," the conservative film critic and radio host Michael Medved said in an interview, is "the motion picture this summer that most passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing."...
Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, told the young conservatives' gathering last month: "You have to check out 'March of the Penguins.' It is an amazing movie. And I have to say, penguins are the really ideal example of monogamy. These things - the dedication of these birds is just amazing."
Ah, but what would Medved say about the gay penguins? Surely if one is going to draw lessons from penguin behavior as a normative prescription for human behavior, the existence of so many pair-bonding gay penguins - particularly ones who make good parents - is a real problem to explain away. One wonders whether Mr. Lowry would be intellectually consistent and pronounce Roy and Silo a "really ideal example" of gay monogamy and gay "family values".
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Well according to http://www.gdargaud.net/Antarctica/Penguins.html, some 78% of of mating pairs (of Emperors)separate after just one year. And since females outnumber the males, sometimes females will try to interfere with mating couples. Some kind of example of monogamy indeed. Why, they're just like a bunch of animals! *L*
So families should split up after each child, then? I hadn't previously realized that the pro-family values crowd was in favor of serial monogamy...
Perhaps the Morgan Freeman voice-over was a little too mesmerizing for some listeners.
Serial monogamy?
Yes, it is technically a monogamous situation in zoology to have a different partner every year. Not exactly the human model to which we all aspire though, unless you're with the NBA. :)
They're named Roy and Silo? No wonder they're queer.
I would be only mildly surprised if the conserva-homophobes tried to blame human culture for having adversely affected the penguins. Our sinful ways so bad that even the penguins turn gay. Kind of like how Rick Santorum tried to blame the radiating homo-particles of Boston for turning the Catholic Church into a bunch of pedophiles. It makes sense, if you're insane.
Re: Update
Why should we use the monogamy of penguins as any sort of guide for our own behavior? Is there some reason to think we are related to other animals, like by common descent or something like that?
The baloney of it all is that humans are not even remotely monogamous. Virtually all humans end up with more than 1 sexual partner.
If you measure our behaviour by the same standard as that used on other members of our kingdom we clearly are serial monogamists and always have been based on the bed hoping present in all ancient writings. We're not quite as active as our cousins the chimps, but we spread the genes pretty well.
Anonymous wrote:
Of course we are related by common descent, but that isn't necessarily a reason why we should behave like any other species. Nor did I make an argument that we should. It's the social conservatives who are making the argument that we should emulate penguins as an ideal example of monogamy. My point is that if you're going to make that argument, you're also stuck with the fact that penguins also show homosexual behavior and mating, and even examples of homosexual penguins raising children.
Or you could conclude that by them allowing the penguins are 'moral' avenue they are making a de facto admission that evolutionary theory has merit.
The penquins do it and so do we----hmmmm:-)
I think Anon's point was that the same social conservatives who see the penguins as the ideal of monogamy also deny common descent, and should therefore reject the fact that we can learn lessons about human nature by observing other animals. They wouldn't agree that rampant promiscuity among chimpanzees tells us anything about human sexuality, so why the penguins? There is obviously no natural history lesson being learned here, it's just a matter of them seeing what they want to see.
Just to remind you all, this regarding penguins isn't new. Remember the saga of Wendell & Cass reported several years ago? This isn't new.
We're here, we're queer, we're penguins
The romantic story of Wendell and Cass, tuxedo-clad life partners, as told by their keeper.
http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2002/03/08/gay_penguins/
I'd have to do a bit of searching, but the same thing has been noted recently in swans.
i think anonymous was joking...??....
Of course, if social conservatives are going to suggest that penguis are a good guide to moral behavior, then they might want to consider "prostitution" behavior in female adelie penguins.
http://www.calacademy.org/calwild/2004spring/stories/materialgirls.html
In case they show no interest, the zoo has also flown in two new male penguins "so that the ladies don't miss out altogether", Kueck added,
This is funny as heck. I guess that the Bremerhafener Zookeepers can't envision the idea of lesbian penguins.
My thoughts were almost exactly what Steve Reuland said -- but with a twist. I was thinking that some wingnut could say something like, "see, those penguins are kept in a prison, and see what happens!!"
Of course, that might undermine their typical support for more prisons...