Gay Penguins!
Ed Brayton on Sep 14th 2005 11:21 am |
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 Balta pointed me to 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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Quick, Ed, buy the domain for http://www.godhatesgaypenguins.com! Maybe you can sell it to Fred Phelps at a substantial profit.
Those are great stories. And how about those lucky German penguins? I would love for someone to bombard me with Swedish female seductresses. I guess I was born into the wrong species.
Seriously though, all the reports of homosexuality among non-human animals that I have read only mention examples of male behavior. Is it less common for females to engage in homosexual behavior as well, or just less often reported? I wonder.
The real question is whether or not Tango grows up to be gay. That would truly thwart God’s plan.
Wow, 2 penguin blog posts on the same day…how often does that happen?
Kos today posted a link to an NYT story about how some on the right are saying that the film “March of the Penguins” makes a strong argument for ID.
Chris wrote:
At least in regard to bonobos, female bisexuality appears to be just as much the norm as male homosexuality.
I thought the Title Penguins was referring to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Heck, I was on the verge of buying lifetime season tickets.
Good. The more wrenches thrown into the “it’s not natural” argument, the better.
I supppose it’s too much of a nitpick to say that same-sex partnerships in penguins aren’t technically homosexual.
I supppose it’s too much of a nitpick to say that same-sex partnerships in penguins aren’t technically homosexual.
The article did state that they engage in sexual behavior. It’s not an image I like to contemplate, but there you have it.
Did all these instances occur only in zoo’s?
Scof-
Yes, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen in the wild. It just can’t be identified in the wild because it’s impossible to tell which penguins are male and which are female in the wild just by looking at them. And we know it’s not a reaction to an imbalance of too many males because they actually rejected the female penguins who are there.
I just mean, after watching March of the Penguins, that their life cycle is centered, at quite intricate levels, on reproduction. What happens when they are put in an environment where nature, essentially, doesn’t rule their lives? Food is provided and there is not a chance they might freeze to death. Maybe incidences of homosexuality increase as the comfort of life increases. That’s just flagrantly ill-thought speculation, with penguins there are other factors. That magnetic beacon or whatever the heck it is that locates the breeding ground for them — well who knows what that thing is doing, and they certainly don’t have 70+ miles to walk around on or swim in. Anyways I’d be curious if these instances have been recorded in nature. I know with other species it has been observed, with the caveat about the limits of our observation abilities in this complex area.
Given that human nature is to live in cities, to occupy houses, to wear clothes…
It must be all those horrible, unnatural things we’re doing that cause our homosexuality!
:)
couple points, you know… because this biologist just can’t let it rest;
1. gay penguins have been observed in the wild
2. there have been lesbian seagulls observed
but as jason says later, we can’t/shouldn’t use nature as our guide…
or then we should just start eating our young when they get sick or weak.
Obviously no one here seems to understand that its not just penguins that have same sex tendacies.. All animals have such instincts. INSTINCT.. not choice, just simply instincts saying there is my mate..
We won’t eat our young or weak beacuse it is NOW a taboo, but who wants to bet it used to be… In FACT there still are tribes that do so.
The ONLY reason why we are seeing more indivisuals declae their same-sex preference, is due to the fact that it is becoming more sociallly acceptable
How many men and women grew up in earlier generations were “closet” gays? But had to live in a farce marriage becuase at that time there was no other way to live at the time?
INter –
My, such confidence! “Obviously” no one understands instincts, except for you.
Quite a broad claim, that. Also your “some tribes still eat their children.” Care to name names and cite sources?