Gay penguins and parenting
The culture wars come to Polar Land
Two male penguins hatch an egg at their home in a Chinese zoo.
(Imaginechina via AP Images)
Penguins are the newest combatant in the culture wars, said Elyas Bakhtiari in The Moderate Voice. A couple of gay penguins were ejected from their colony in a Chinese zoo, Polar Land, because zookeepers “(invoking the little-known Zoo Proposition 8)” wanted “to prevent them from stealing eggs and ruining the sanctity of hetero penguin marriage.” But “pro-gay-penguin-rights activists” protested, so their handlers gave them eggs from an inexperienced mother and they turned out to be the best parents in the colony.
Gay activists should be careful what they read into the drama at the zoo, said Don Surber in West Virginia's Daily Mail online. If the plight of the same-sex penguin pairs proves that being gay is natural, the fact that the rest of the colony didn't want them to take care of other birds' eggs "proves that being anti-gay is natural," too.
All this proves, said Caroline Graham in Britain’s Daily Mail, is that male penguins, gay or straight, are driven by an urge to be fathers, according to wildlife experts. And since the same-sex couples can’t produce eggs on their own, zoo officials merely wanted to separate them from the parents in the colony to avoid creating disturbances at hatching time.
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6 Comments
Posted by JSB, Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 12:30 pm Was there any evidence that the males had stolen eggs before or did the human zookeepers merely anthropomorphize the penguins and assume there would be strife in the colony, taking action rather than permitting biology to play itself out naturally? Hard to argue it's unnatural if it occurs in the natural world, and foolish impose human "value" on flightless aquatic birds.
Posted by Bruce, Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 1:26 pm Lots of things are natural but not "moral". Being gay just happens to be both natural (genetically and memetically driven) and moral (unless you are an ancient shepherd or live by rules written down or transcribed by ancient shepherds). But it definitely ought not be illegal.
Posted by nem0.n00ne, Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 1:49 pm JSB there are 2 points you seem to have missed. [1] since males don't lay eggs, they had to have stolen their egg from another nest. [2]a zoo is not the natural world; it is a totally artificial enviroment. So because it happened in a zoo, does not make it natural. However, I agree that it's foolish to impose human values on animals whether their actions are natural or not.
Posted by Dave, Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 1:58 pm Stop hating on the penguins - that necessary matter being addressed onto other matters. For example the assumption that just because same-sex tendencies are natural that anti-same sex tendencies are natural has no foundation here - just an fyi the hetero penguin couples didn't catch on that the gay penguins were swapping their eggs with rocks thus no anti-gay sentiment in point of fact in the wild gay penguins will take care of eggs that have been abandoned and eggs of parents that have died, thus preventing those eggs from dying as no other penguins will take care of an abandoned egg as they have their own nest. Being anti-gay seems more likely to be a human phenomenon.
Posted by Brett, Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 2:47 pm "Gay activists should be careful what they read into the drama at the zoo..." Humans should be careful of the meaning of the words that they read, lest they misunderstand them completely!! So many people get an "F" for reading comprehension here!!! "...the FACT that the rest of the colony 'passed Prop. 8'..." wrote Don Surber. No, the penguins did not put up a proposition 8 and vote on it. Get serious. The homophobic zookeepers were the ones who invoked a tongue-in-cheek "zoo prop. 8" of their own and therefore removed the gay penguins from the rest of the colony to avoid future problems that they believed to be coming. The gay penguins did not steal any eggs. That possibility was an idea that was dreamed up by the homophobic zookeepers, too. The penguins were given an egg of an inexperienced parent penguin by the zookeepers. Please read carefully and please comprehend what is written accurately!!! You can choose your opinion, however unrealistic it may or may not be, but you cannot choose your facts.
Posted by Peg, Tuesday, December 16, 2008, 8:40 pm I guess the anthropomorphic implication from the gay advocates is that all would be good with American society if gay couples were given a first-born infant from a first-time mother. This of course is written with tongue-in-cheek while I roll on the floor laughing at the gravitas given to this subject.
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