An Unusual Love Story: Penguins accept same-sex commitments.

[Cannikin]

Penguins accept same-sex commitments. Why do some people have so much trouble with the idea?

WEB EXCLUSIVE
Newsweek
Updated: 11:45 a.m. ET Feb. 23, 2004Feb. 23 -

Birds do it. Bees do it. And, it turns out, even the penguins at the Central Park Zoo do it. So let's do it: Let's let gay people make a lifelong commitment to each other openly and in public.

I reached this Cole Porter-esque conclusion on Valentine's Day when, in my ongoing quest to understand why some heterosexuals believe that gay marriage will destroy their "traditional" marriages, I stopped by the Central Park Zoo to interview the famously gay penguins, Roy and Silo. You may not know about Roy and Silo, but we New Yorkers have been mighty proud since they came out in 1998. Finally, instead of having New York's collective sex life defined by the floozy, commitment-challenged heterosexual women of "Sex and the City" or the pages of personal ads taken out by single losers, we finally had a First Couple of Monogamy that would show the world that love and fidelity could still conquer all (plus, they looked great in their little tuxedos).

Roy and Silo's love is a story for the ages. Like so many great lovers, Roy and Silo met in a zoo holding tank in 1998. They were young then, and unsure of themselves sexually like many adolescents (and when I say "adolescents," of course, I mean me). But their attraction could not be denied, and they have remained inseparable, according to Central Park Zoo penguin keeper Rob Gramzay.

Gramzay knew that Roy and Silo had paired off, because at breeding time, they did everything the "straight" penguins did: they built a nest, they defended it from others and engaged in what zookeepers euphemistically call "ecstatic display." It sounds kinky, but it simply means that the penguins stand straight up, stretch out their wings and entwine their necks. It's the penguin equivalent of going to City Hall in San Francisco. (As an aside, isn't S.F. mayor Gavin Newsom a genius? By allowing gays to marry, not only is he sending a powerful civil rights message, but every one of those gay couples had to buy a marriage license. At $83 a pop, Newsom has added almost $400,000 to the strapped civic treasury—money that certainly won't be refunded when President Bush amends the Constitution to do something no reasonable compassionate conservative would ever do: Make it less protective of individual freedom and personal liberty rather than more).

Due to copyright limits, the rest of the story can be found here:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4352011/

[xchrom]

1. don't you just love

the roy and silo story -- so sweet.

[Cannikin]

9. kick

[Cannikin]

2. It will make a great "After School Special"

Do they still do those?

[Habibi]

3. Great story!

Thanks for posting it--I just sent an email to Gersh thanking him, too!

[NNadir]

4. Penguins, as George Bush can tell you, live where everything is upside...

down, the Southern Hemisphere. (They have blacks there too, you know.)

Therefore it's natural that penguins are unnatural. Case closed. God wants the US Constitution to ban gays, and what God wants God gets.

[Rebel_with_a_cause]

6. I've never heard of penguins bonding homosexually

...not in a natural environment. They mate heterosexually, for life, even the Emperor Penguins in Antarctica, where the environment is the harshest. The females are attracted to males who can make deep gutteral sounds, which indicate the male is fat and can sustain 160 days without food, protecting the egg with his stomach while the female heads off for food.

In sub-antarctic climates, the males are very territorial and fight each other for nesting rocks and living space.

Penguins in Central Park make about as much sense as * in the WH. No wonder we're seeing so many homosexual tendencies within the upper RW ranks.

[Cannikin]

7. I dont think living in New York made them gay.....

"Gramzay knew that Roy and Silo had paired off, because at breeding time, they did everything the "straight" penguins did: they built a nest, they defended it from others and engaged in what zookeepers euphemistically call "ecstatic display."

Did you sex (check the gender) of each of the animals you observed in your study? How do you know they were all male/female?

[Care Bear]

5. Because people

don't dress as well as penguins; never have.

Seriously, whenever I explain that homosexuality occurs naturally in the non-human animal kingdom, somehow the subject gets changed.

BTW, yes Newsom is a genius. I also disagree with those who said he went about it the wrong way.

The CA initiative that passed making CA a man/woman marriage state was held in a small election with about 3 initiatives and about 29% of the registered voters voted. I am still ashamed, but when I keep hearing about the state law, I want to puke.

The best thing to do is to have the City register gay people; challenge the State law; win in the 9th Circuit and, by then, have 2 new decent people appointed by the incoming democratic president approve gay marriage as handled by SF.

I'm sick of all prejudice. What's left now? It's super fine to be anti-homosexual, anti-Jew, and anti-fat. That's about it. Enough!

[Cannikin]

8. And anti-teate....cant leave that one out.

[theHandpuppet]

10. My parents had a pair of gay drakes

They actually had three ducks, but the two males were totally bonded to one another for many years. They reluctantly accepted the presence of a female a couple of years after they came to live at my parents' pond, but in all the years afterwards they made her keep her distance, even when resting outside the pond. It was kind of sad in a way, since she was the lonely "odd duck out". But the utter devotion of the two drakes was heartwarming -- to me, that is. My parents found their bond to be totally appalling, which is why they introduced the (rejected) female to the group.

Same-sex pairings and mating are quite common in the natural world, and since we can consider animals (unlike humans) to be without sin, then there is nothing "unnatural" about it. Of course, just discussing the subject of same-sex pairings in nature drives fundies nuts. Can't say that I think much of so-called scientists who have turned a blind eye to the obvious for so long.

[mainer]

11. New York Times had an article about gay animals

It was in their science section a few weeks ago. The title was: "The love that dare not squeak its name." It was hilarious. They mentioned the gay penguins, and also said that Bonobo monkeys are frequently bisexual. Gay sex is common throughout the animal kingdom.