(no subject)
Yesterday in the news the BBC had the following news article:
Gay outrage over penguin sex test
This is the gist of the story:Gay rights activists have protested at a north German zoo's plans to test the sexual orientation of six male penguins which have displayed homosexual traits. Bremerhaven's Zoo am Meer said it would introduce four extra female penguins from Sweden to the group to see if the males really were gay.
Anyone reading my LJ for a while knows that I am very big on equal rights for gays (and everyone else) but I'm afraid I just don't get this. Outrage over what? Let me speak directly to some quotes:The zoo says it just wants to encourage the rare Humboldt penguins to breed.
Okay, makes sense… at least as much as any zoo breeding program makes sense, particularly with a rare animal.The males have been observed trying to mate with each other and trying to hatch offspring out of stones.
Gay animals are a known fact. I posted on this before but I can't find the post. These penguins may well be gay. Or they may be behaving oddly due to their unnatural captivity and the odd way animals behave in zoos."We don't know whether the three male pairs are really homosexual or whether they have just bonded because of a shortage of females," said Mrs Kueck, quoted by Germany's Der Spiegel news magazine.
I think this makes perfect sense... or are we going to claim that gay sex in prison makes most inmates gay?Gay groups insisted that penguins had a right to form couples without human interference, she said.
Eh? I'm confused. Without human interference? What is keeping the zoo from getting more females in if not human interference? And it is a zoo after all. There is little natural about it and it is all about human interference. To pretend that these animals are behaving normally or naturally makes no sense to me. Animals in zoos do all manner of strange things, as do humans in prisons. Some go a little crazy, some just die, few ever breed and others exhibit bizarre behaviors.
I think this is one of the worst cases of anthropomorphism I've seen in a while. If these boy penguins are really gay then they will stay that way. And if they do start hanging out with the girls then they never were gay. That's okay. It proves nothing about any big picture issues, only something about these individual penguins in their particular circumstances. But please let's remember that there is no social stigma for homosexual behavior in this group, no ostracism, no violence and no pride marches either -- nothing remotely like the way we humans handle these issues. They will simply follow their instincts, or not since their environment remains a breeding ground for the unpredictable.
In fact as I recall penguins mate for life and if this is the case then it may well be a bigger obstacle to the zoo's goals than anything else, even if those birds might otherwise have behaved in a heterosexual way. But in the end it's a zoo and these animals are not an example of anything except captive penguins. Let's not pretend they are a part of the very real struggle for human rights for homosexual people.
I think silly arguments detract from the credibility of a very strong case.
Gay outrage over penguin sex test
This is the gist of the story:Gay rights activists have protested at a north German zoo's plans to test the sexual orientation of six male penguins which have displayed homosexual traits. Bremerhaven's Zoo am Meer said it would introduce four extra female penguins from Sweden to the group to see if the males really were gay.
Anyone reading my LJ for a while knows that I am very big on equal rights for gays (and everyone else) but I'm afraid I just don't get this. Outrage over what? Let me speak directly to some quotes:The zoo says it just wants to encourage the rare Humboldt penguins to breed.
Okay, makes sense… at least as much as any zoo breeding program makes sense, particularly with a rare animal.The males have been observed trying to mate with each other and trying to hatch offspring out of stones.
Gay animals are a known fact. I posted on this before but I can't find the post. These penguins may well be gay. Or they may be behaving oddly due to their unnatural captivity and the odd way animals behave in zoos."We don't know whether the three male pairs are really homosexual or whether they have just bonded because of a shortage of females," said Mrs Kueck, quoted by Germany's Der Spiegel news magazine.
I think this makes perfect sense... or are we going to claim that gay sex in prison makes most inmates gay?Gay groups insisted that penguins had a right to form couples without human interference, she said.
Eh? I'm confused. Without human interference? What is keeping the zoo from getting more females in if not human interference? And it is a zoo after all. There is little natural about it and it is all about human interference. To pretend that these animals are behaving normally or naturally makes no sense to me. Animals in zoos do all manner of strange things, as do humans in prisons. Some go a little crazy, some just die, few ever breed and others exhibit bizarre behaviors.
I think this is one of the worst cases of anthropomorphism I've seen in a while. If these boy penguins are really gay then they will stay that way. And if they do start hanging out with the girls then they never were gay. That's okay. It proves nothing about any big picture issues, only something about these individual penguins in their particular circumstances. But please let's remember that there is no social stigma for homosexual behavior in this group, no ostracism, no violence and no pride marches either -- nothing remotely like the way we humans handle these issues. They will simply follow their instincts, or not since their environment remains a breeding ground for the unpredictable.
In fact as I recall penguins mate for life and if this is the case then it may well be a bigger obstacle to the zoo's goals than anything else, even if those birds might otherwise have behaved in a heterosexual way. But in the end it's a zoo and these animals are not an example of anything except captive penguins. Let's not pretend they are a part of the very real struggle for human rights for homosexual people.
I think silly arguments detract from the credibility of a very strong case.