Just got the latest issue of Out magazine and while thumbing through the usual spread of young and impossibly fit models hawking ridiculously priced fashion, gadgets, and the latest and trendiest in "must-haves", I came across a story that was (pull out the puke bucket) actually heart-warming. Ironically, the story takes place in the refrigerated section of New York's Central Zoo, where a pair of special penguins have proven that being gay really is going to the birds.
Meet Roy and Silo, a pair of chinstrap penguins. Roy and Silo met during the 1998 breeding season and paired off for life as many species of penguin are wont to do. Nothing unusual here, save one small detail: both are male penguins. Gay penguins are nothing new.
The are several paired same sex penguins at the Berlin Zoo in Germany. The Gay penguins there have gotten so famous in their homeland that there were protests when zoo keepers attempted ways of making the homo-ice-birds go for members of the opposite sex. Well, the penguins turned out to not only be ice-birds, but ice Queens, as they would have none of that. After facing public scrutiny and the icy stares of some put out, out and proud birds, the Zoo keepers relented and let the birds remain with their same-sex partners. Funny thing about penguins; once they choose a partner, nothing short of a hungry orca, seal, or shark will seperate them.
Hopping back across the pond, back in New York there doesn't seem to be anything extraordinary about Roy and Silo. Just another uptown gay couple living their life in the community, catching fish and building a home. Oh, wait . . . building a home? Why yes, Roy and Silo constructed a nest, which as any one knows, birds only do when they are ready to hatch some baby birds of their own. Roy and Silo began indicating that they too wanted a chick to raise. Leave it to a couple of New Yorkers to be trendsetters.
Not only did Roy and Silo build a nest, they defended it vigorously from nosey neighbors and SoBap conversionists. As if trying to get the message across that their biological clocks were ticking like this (stomp-stomp-stomp), the pair adopted a wayward rock and began incubating it. The Zoo keepers were so impressed by this behavior, that they substituted a plaster egg for the rock and observed the pair closely to see if they would indeed be fit for parenthood.
Roy and Silo were exemplary in there penguin parenting performance. So, like many gay couples in New York, they got on the adoption waiting list. Then one day an egg from another pair of penguins became available. The couple already had other eggs and simply could not afford to feed one more chick, so they put it up for adoption and Roy and Silo became a pair of proud papa penguins.
Eventually, the egg hatched and Tango was born. Roy and Silo split the parenting duties 50/50, taking turns feeding, warming, and changing baby Tango just like any other penguin parents would. Roy and Silo made headlines in their city and Culumbia U. psychiatric professor Justin Richardson together with his playwright/TV producer partner, Peter Parnell, took notice and wrote a children's book. Entitled and Tango makes three, the picture book that follows Roy and Silo on their parenting adventure will be available just in time for Father's Day later this month.
As for Roy and Silo's peers . . . having taken no notice that there is anything different about Roy and Silo, and accepting them wholly as part of their penguin community, humans could learn a thing or two from this group of birds about compassion and humanity.
Read more about it at www.out.com or Google "Roy Silo Tango" (sounds like military code) for a plethora of articles from around the globe.
Meet Roy and Silo, a pair of chinstrap penguins. Roy and Silo met during the 1998 breeding season and paired off for life as many species of penguin are wont to do. Nothing unusual here, save one small detail: both are male penguins. Gay penguins are nothing new.
The are several paired same sex penguins at the Berlin Zoo in Germany. The Gay penguins there have gotten so famous in their homeland that there were protests when zoo keepers attempted ways of making the homo-ice-birds go for members of the opposite sex. Well, the penguins turned out to not only be ice-birds, but ice Queens, as they would have none of that. After facing public scrutiny and the icy stares of some put out, out and proud birds, the Zoo keepers relented and let the birds remain with their same-sex partners. Funny thing about penguins; once they choose a partner, nothing short of a hungry orca, seal, or shark will seperate them.
Hopping back across the pond, back in New York there doesn't seem to be anything extraordinary about Roy and Silo. Just another uptown gay couple living their life in the community, catching fish and building a home. Oh, wait . . . building a home? Why yes, Roy and Silo constructed a nest, which as any one knows, birds only do when they are ready to hatch some baby birds of their own. Roy and Silo began indicating that they too wanted a chick to raise. Leave it to a couple of New Yorkers to be trendsetters.
Not only did Roy and Silo build a nest, they defended it vigorously from nosey neighbors and SoBap conversionists. As if trying to get the message across that their biological clocks were ticking like this (stomp-stomp-stomp), the pair adopted a wayward rock and began incubating it. The Zoo keepers were so impressed by this behavior, that they substituted a plaster egg for the rock and observed the pair closely to see if they would indeed be fit for parenthood.
Roy and Silo were exemplary in there penguin parenting performance. So, like many gay couples in New York, they got on the adoption waiting list. Then one day an egg from another pair of penguins became available. The couple already had other eggs and simply could not afford to feed one more chick, so they put it up for adoption and Roy and Silo became a pair of proud papa penguins.
Eventually, the egg hatched and Tango was born. Roy and Silo split the parenting duties 50/50, taking turns feeding, warming, and changing baby Tango just like any other penguin parents would. Roy and Silo made headlines in their city and Culumbia U. psychiatric professor Justin Richardson together with his playwright/TV producer partner, Peter Parnell, took notice and wrote a children's book. Entitled and Tango makes three, the picture book that follows Roy and Silo on their parenting adventure will be available just in time for Father's Day later this month.
As for Roy and Silo's peers . . . having taken no notice that there is anything different about Roy and Silo, and accepting them wholly as part of their penguin community, humans could learn a thing or two from this group of birds about compassion and humanity.
Read more about it at www.out.com or Google "Roy Silo Tango" (sounds like military code) for a plethora of articles from around the globe.
Comments
I stay away from 183 in the mornings. it is always a mess. Although, it is the better route in the afternoons.
PS, you read this post before I was finished writing it (a slip of the keyboard accidentally published it before I was done with it).
That's why I leave so early in the morning--cuts down on my in-traffic wait time.