Penguin Relations

When this blog began, I was fascinated by gay penguins. Prior to reading an article on homosexual birds, it never occurred to me that animals could be gay. It makes sense, of course, but it's nothing I ever learned about at the zoo or in biology class. Still, it's noteworthy as it seems to validate homosexuality as natural.

This past week, the media covered the story of Harry and Pepper, famous gay penguins that ended their six year relationship when Harry left to be with the newly-widowed neighbor penguin, Linda. It's kind of sad, I guess, but not any more sad than how humans are using the incident to push their personal agendas. Here's a piece from the article I linked:

With Pepper rejoining the ranks of the single, Christian website OneNewsNow.com took the split as a sign that "nature prefers heterosexual relationships."

Others were more sympathetic to the bereft Pepper.

John, writing on "The Frigging Loon" blog, said he was "heartbroken" about the split and that he hopes Pepper "finds another male penguin that is ten times hotter than Harry!"

While those two, um, "experts" have strong feelings, my strongest feeling was a sense of déjà vu. Was this story really new? Hadn't I read the same thing a while back?

I did some research. As it turns out, back in 2005, a month after I learned about gay penguins, however, one of the other most high profile gay penguin pairs, Silo and Roy, broke up. I didn't write on the matter then, because I don't think it's my place to comment on birds' sex lives. Not to mention, I don't really understand how their sex lives work; I can't say I've ever mated with something with such indiscernible genitals that it would require a blood test to pinpoint its precise gender. Nevertheless, what I did notice from reading this old article was that before that hussy Scrappy entered the picture, Silo and Roy had dated for six years.

Six years? Both gay penguin couples dated for precisely six years before breaking up? You know what this means: "gay" is a six year fad. You can all feel better knowing that the next time you feel a touch of homosexuality coming on, you can just remain in the closet for six years until you've recovered.

Thanks for the life lesson, nature.