Gay penguins proud parents

Berlin - Two homosexual penguins have successfully hatched an egg that was rejected by its parents and are now proudly rearing the chick, the German zoo housing the couple said on Wednesday.

"Z and Vielpunkt, both males, gladly accepted their 'Easter present' and began straight away with hatching the egg," the zoo in Bremerhaven in northern Germany said.

"Since the chick arrived they are behaving in the same way as one would expect a heterosexual couple to do. Both happy fathers are now diligently handling the everyday care... of their adopted offspring," the zoo said.

Z and Vielpunkt are part of a six-strong gay community among the zoo's collection of endangered Humboldt penguins who rose to fame in 2005 when four Swedish females were brought in an unsuccessful attempt to "cure" them.

"Homosexuality is nothing unusual among animals," the zoo said on Wednesday. "Sex and coupling up in our world do not necessarily have anything to do with reproduction."

http://www.news24.com/Content/SciTech/News/1132/c82907a818c24d1bbb09d0a9699bae63/03-06-2009%2010-06/Gay_penguins_now_proud_parents

More here as well:

http://www.mousemusings.com/weblogs/2006/02/zoo-tempts-gay-penguins-to-go-straight.html



Let this be a lesson from the animal kingdom for all those neanderthals who still believe homosexuality is a sin that should be cured.

...who rose to fame in 2005 when four Swedish females were brought in an unsuccessful attempt to "cure" them

Those Swedes! Even their penguins are hawt!

Funny when penguins have more rights than humans, isn't it? And by "funny" I mean "not funny", of course.

This is a better link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1190747/My-dads-Gay-penguins-parents.html

Look at how they guard their baby:



Sorry, not allowed: Humboldt penguins Z and Vielpunkt stand guard at the entrance to the cave. They have protected their new chick so fiercely that zoo officials have not even been able to ascertain if the chick is a male or female yet.

Just AWESOME!

it's going to grow up in an immoral penguin cave and be exposed to depravity and poor parental role models and wild penguin orgies and penguin -on-chick situations and the north american penguin chick association (NAPCA) and holy shit are those Armani flippers? Awesome!

:sarcasm:

Maybe it's a numbers game but I have never, without exception, seen children of same-gender parents who aren't well adjusted and well on their way to being splendid adults. I actually don't know any kids of same-gender parents who happen to be gay themselves - isn't THAT ironic.

I have a friend who adopted two brothers. He got them when they were two and four years old because their mother had died and their father was in jail for murder. The problem is that the kids had already been totally fucked up by their extended birth family. The kids were allowed full contact with the extended birth family -- a collection of drug addicts, alcoholics, welfare cheats, and petty criminals. The family worked overtime to undermine everything my friend did.

He went through 16 years of hell, worked his ass off with those kids, and did everything humanly possible to keep them on the right track.

When they turned 18, the family lured them back with "Come stay with us and you can do anything you want." They are both now on drugs and alcohol and living on the street. My friend is heartbroken.

I think I'd put my foot down when it came to extended contact with the original dysfunctional environment, and your friend's story is definitely a cautionary tale. I'm sure in hindsight there are some things he would have done differently, knowing the outcome.

One thing is for sure - it's a lot harder to "go it alone"; I had my own extended family and community to help. That and the one rule I took away from my own upbringing: street lawyering from the kids is not allowed. Families are a dictatorship - when there aren't rules (and draconian enforcement), the foundation that kiddos need for a base to begin learning their own way gets kind of squishy and it takes longer for them to get there. On the way to growing up there's drugs, and alcohol and every kind of destructive behavior and temptation that will interpose, and sometimes win. Our kinds of families require sensitive, informed leadership, not open consensus and deal-making. It is a dangerous world out there and the only thing that will protect a young'un from it is learning how to navigate it successfully, not avoiding it, or believing that danger = freedom.

Homosexual couples actually have to make plans to achieve parenthood. Others often fall into it. When you've made plans for a child, it is a wanted child.

that at least 10% of all animals have homosexual tendencies. It's not a choice, you is what you is and you ain't what you ain't.

"No species has been found in which homosexual behaviour has not been shown to exist, with the exception of species that never have sex at all, such as sea urchins and aphis. Moreover, a part of the animal kingdom is hermaphroditic, truly bisexual. For them, homosexuality is not an issue."
—Petter Bøckman

Homosexual sexual behavior occurs in the animal kingdom, especially in social species, particularly in marine birds and mammals, monkeys, and the great apes. Homosexual behavior has been observed among 1,500 species, and in 500 of those it is well documented.<136><137>. This discovery constitutes a major argument against those calling into question the biological legitimacy or naturalness of homosexuality, or those regarding it as a meditated social decision. For example, male penguin couples have been documented to mate for life, build nests together, and to use a stone as a surrogate egg in nesting and brooding. In a well-publicized story from 2004, the Central Park Zoo in the United States replaced one male couple's stone with a fertile egg, which the couple then raised as their own offspring.<138>

The genetic basis of animal homosexuality has been studied in the fly Drosophila melanogaster.<139> Here, multiple genes have been identified that can cause homosexual courtship and mating.<140> These genes are thought to control behavior through pheromones as well as altering the structure of the animal's brains.<141><142> These studies have also investigated the influence of environment on the likelihood of flies displaying homosexual behavior.<143><144>

Georgetown University professor Janet Mann has specifically theorized that homosexual behavior, at least in dolphins, is an evolutionary advantage that minimizes intraspecies aggression, especially among males.<145> Studies indicating prenatal homosexuality in certain animal species have had social and political implications surrounding the gay rights debate.<146>

Two Hundred Years at Looking at Homosexual Wildlife, Explaining (Away) Animal Homosexuality and Not For Breeding Only in his 1999 book Biological Exuberance to the "documentation of systematic prejudices" where he notes "the present ignorance of biology lies precisely in its single-minded attempt to find reproductive (or other) "explanations" for homosexuality, transgender, and non-procreative and alternative heterosexualities. Petter Bøckman, academic adviser for the Against Nature? exhibit states

"Many researchers have described homosexuality as something altogether different from sex. They must realise that animals can have sex with who they will, when they will and without consideration to a researcher's ethical principles".

Homosexual behavior is widespread amongst social birds and mammals, particularly the sea mammals and the primates.

Two New York Central Park Zoo's male chinstrap penguins, similar to those pictured, became internationally known when they coupled and later were given an egg that needed hatching and care, which they successfully did.



List of mammals displaying homosexual behavior

Selected mammals from the full list
African Elephant
Brown Bear
Brown Rat
Buffalo
Caribou
Cat (domestic)
Cheetah
Common Dolphin
Common Marmoset
Common Raccoon
Dog (domestic)
European Bison
Human
Bonobos

sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality#cite_note-se...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_displaying...

That documents observed examples and patterns of homosexual behavior in something like 500 species of birds and mammals.

man made and often skewed by cultural bias. Nature speaks for itself.

Specifically with regard to the benefits of in-born homosexuality for social creatures. The idea was that in social animals, a gay member of the community was unlikely to breed themselves, so they would have no offspring to care for. Thus, their efforts on behalf of the community would be directed back into the protection and growth of the community/herd, providing a greater adult to offspring ratio, and increasing the odds of survival for the genetic package as a whole. In the end, despite not reproducing, they helped their family survive and prosper into the next generation.

Of course, that never took into account us giving eggs to gay penguins.

it sure seems like there is some benefit conferred by having gay critters/hoomans ( LOL) as we keep popping up generation after generation.

Care for the young, less competition for mates perhaps equals less agrressivness?

Some theorists see it as opposed to Darwin's notion of reproduction of the individual as the highest goal, there maybe a benefit in having gay members, for the survival of the group or community.

Was the central theme of that article--that a latent genetic or biochemical option for homosexuality helps pass along the family's gene pool. I tend to agree with the basic idea behind it, since it explains why (absent random chance, which seems improbable) homosexuality is so universally seen in warm-blooded species, when nature by definition tends to weed out behaviors that aren't genetically productive.

"In the 1930s J.B.S. Haldane had full grasp of the basic quantities and considerations that play a role in kin selection. He famously said that, "I would lay down my life for two brothers or eight cousins"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection

:)

I love that book! So many cute illustrations of animals doin' it queer style!
It's a veritable Kama Sutra of gay animal lovin'.

Seriously, it's also chock full of interesting information. The author is Bruce Baghemihl, a Canadian biologist.
I wish I still owned that book - my favorite are the lesbian rodents that do little mating dances for each other by shaking their rumps in each other's faces.
Bruce calls this "the rumba".

Also notable in the book were all sorts of gender variant behaviors and physical characteristics- also animals who could be considered transgendered.
For instance, two female birds who took on female gender behavior mated - AND two female birds mated and one did the work usually done by males. All sorts of variety out there in the animal kingdom. Don't even try to read the chapter on bonobos - they can't stop doin' it for two seconds.
So, personally, I think this indicates the existence both of androgynous or gender normative gay people/lesbians as well as other varieties - butch-femme bird couples.

My girlfriend thinks that one of those penguins is a "bear" (the chubbier one) - teehee.

on the subject that I found looking for info. - these are just book reviews but sound interesting.
One is the Bagemihl book. :)

...........

Evolution's Rainbow: Diversity, Gender, and Sexuality in Nature and People
From Publishers Weekly
This brilliant and accessible work of biological criticism has the potential to revolutionize the way readers conceive of gender and sexuality in the natural world. Roughgarden, a professor of biology at Stanford University and a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, argues that the diversity of gender and sexuality one finds in many species suggests that evolutionary biologists of a strictly Darwinian bent are often misguided, since, according to Roughgarden, they erroneously assume a universally applicable gender binary in all species. The first half of the book brings that sexual diversity to light through innumerable examples among birds, reptiles, fish and mammals provided in highly readable anecdotes. The significance of this first section lies not only in this startlingly original portrait of nature, but also in how it suggests that contemporary Darwinian sexual selection theory is in part a result of cultural bias, since it "predicts that the baseline outcome of social evolution is horny, handsome, healthy warriors paired with discreetly discerning damsels." Roughgarden critiques this theory through an expansive study of biological scholarship, highlighting the frequent contradictions between such claims and the data used (and, she argues, manipulated) to prove them. The second and undoubtedly more controversial section discusses sexual diversity in humans. Taking as a given the presence in our own species of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, transsexual and intersex persons, she reads current scientific writing-on a supposed "gay gene," on gender reassignment and other issues-through a perspective that sees diversity as an advantage, not a handicap. Readers more accustomed to traditional categories of gender and sexuality in humans will undoubtedly be surprised at how different a portrait emerges from Roughgarden's deeply personal and insistently ethical point of view.


Review
"A fun read with laudable politics." -- Out Magazine

And another book review on this topic:

Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity

Amazon.com Review
Bruce Bagemihl writes that Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity was a "labor of love." And indeed it must have been, since most scientists have thus far studiously avoided the topic of widespread homosexual behavior in the animal kingdom--sometimes in the face of undeniable evidence. Bagemihl begins with an overview of same-sex activity in animals, carefully defining courtship patterns, affectionate behaviors, sexual techniques, mating and pair-bonding, and same-sex parenting. He firmly dispels the prevailing notion that homosexuality is uniquely human and only occurs in "unnatural" circumstances. As far as the nature-versus-nurture argument--it's obviously both, he concludes. An overview of biologists' discomfort with their own observations of animal homosexuality over 200 years would be truly hilarious if it didn't reflect a tendency of humans (and only humans) to respond with aggression and hostility to same-sex behavior in our own species. In fact, Bagemihl reports, scientists have sometimes been afraid to report their observations for fear of recrimination from a hidebound (and homophobic) academia. Scientists' use of anthropomorphizing vocabulary such as insulting, unfortunate, and inappropriate to describe same-sex matings shows a decided lack of objectivity on the part of naturalists.


Astounding as it sounds, a number of scientists have actually argued that when a female Bonobo wraps her legs around another female ... while emitting screams of enjoyment, this is actually "greeting" behavior, or "appeasement" behavior ... almost anything, it seems, besides pleasurable sexual behavior.
Throw this book into the middle of a crowd of wildlife biologists and watch them scatter. But Bagemihl doesn't let the scientific community's discomfort deny him the opportunity to show "the love that dare not bark its name" in all its feathery, furry, toothy diversity. The second half of this hefty tome is filled with an exhaustive array of species that exhibit homosexuality, complete with photos and detailed scientific illustrations of the behaviors described. Biological Exuberance is a well-researched, thoroughly scientific, and erudite look at a purposefully neglected frontier of zoology. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly
A brilliant and important exercise in exposing the limitations of received opinion, this book presents to the lay reader and specialist alike an exhaustively argued case that animals have multiple shades of sexual orientation. The book is broken into two sections, the second containing species "portraits" detailing recorded homosexual/transgendered behaviors. The main portion of the book sets out to reveal and, indeed, revel in the documented evidence to date that some 450 species engage in both sustained and occasional "gay," "lesbian" and transgendered pairing, parenting and play. Animals (both heterosexual and homosexual) also rape and divorce, commit "child" abuse and infidelity and can be lifelong celibates. Human claims to uniqueness in this arena are shown to be increasingly difficult to maintain. The overall effect is to detonate the myth that animals are solely driven by heterosexual reproductive urges, as Bagemihl, a biologist, amasses evidence with case study after case study of species ranging from whiptail lizards to bottlenose dolphins, flamingoes, vampire bats and giraffes. But his book offers more than a zoological laundry list. Biologists who have long classified these behaviors as taking place only in "abnormal" conditions or as "pseudo-copulation," "mistakes," "practicing" and domineering sexual bullying are frequently shown to be willfully ignoring behavior that does not reflect their own worldview or accepted scientific thought. What might so easily have turned into a tub-thumping activist tract hitched to the need for acceptance of homosexuality among humans is instead elevated to a hugely inclusive, celebratory biological interpretation of the world. Bagemihl convincingly overturns previous inviolable "truths" that scarcity and functionality are the prime agents of biological change, and advances instead the idea that abundance and extravagance?"biological exuberance"?are just as crucial to the mosaic of life. Numerous illustrations by John Megahan.
.........

:toast:

They have always been far more interested in each other than any other dog, male or female, that they encounter.

One of neighbors wanted Nikko to impregnate her dog and he showed not the slightest bit of interest. She called him 'queer' and I just lost it. She's never come back.

Raggs was madly in love/lust for our other female dog, Sheba, always humping her. After Sheba died, Raggs lost the will to live and even though healthy, she soon followed Sheba o'er the Rainbow bridge...

To prevent illicit gay penguin activity. It is a real problem you know.

So many Grand Old Penguins...have been seen hanging out there tapping feet...with wide stances.

I Loved It!

This is a story based on two male penguins who live in the NY Central Park Zoo. They tried hatching a rock first. Then the zookeeper gave them an egg, which they successfully hatched, and raised the chick. It is really a cute picture book!

http://www.amazon.com/Tango-Makes-Three-Peter-Parnell/dp/0689878451/ref=sr_1_44?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244155332&sr=1-44

And nuke gay whales as well!

We can't have facts get in the way of our biblical truths!!!!!!!

:sarcasm:

What's this about homosexuality being a choice of lifestyle? :eyes:

Did they observe them going at it, or is it some other reason? I mean, they could just be platonic buds, if sex wasn't involved.

(I was going to make a joke about their record collection being totally Judy, Liza and Barbra, but there may be people who would take offense to that...)

Clever.