Gay Penguins Raising a Family

Here's what we're talking about...

BERLIN (AFP) - 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," said the zoo in Bremerhaven, in northern Germany.

"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. "Sex and coupling up in our world do not necessarily have anything to do with reproduction."

The Humboldt penguin is normally found on the coast of Chile and Peru, but numbers have dropped to between 12,000 and 20,000 as industrial fishing methods have led to dwindling stocks of the anchovies on which they feed. Gay penguins hatch rejected egg

This statement has a lot of implications: "Sex and coupling up in our world do not necessarily have anything to do with reproduction." I suppose "in our world" means among zoo animals. There is a certain way of thinking about sex and marriage in our society, a belief that they have a function -- reproduction -- and should be regulated according to that function. That view always seemed awkward to me, I have never been comfortable inferring what nature intends, or what God intends, for that matter, and making decisions based on that. I think we hear the will of nature in our hearts, we don't accurately deduce it from empirical observation.

These penguins love one another, and now they have a cute little tuxedoed baby to love. Everything seems good in this story.