The Tale of Two Penguins, Betrayal, and the Christian Right Frenzy

Remember Roy and Silo? The couple made headlines a few months back as the loving pair of gay penguins. During their six year relationship, they adopted a rock and tried to hatch it. Zoo keepers, after trying to break them up first by introducing some swanky female penguins, finally gave up and supplied them with a real penguin egg to hatch. They faithfully hatched the egg and successfully raised Tango, a baby girl penguin.

Normally, this would be a story zoo keepers would joke and laugh about over a few beers at Happy Hour.

Not quite.

Somewhere along the way, the Happy Hour story made headlines. Gay activists proudly pointed to the pair as proof that homosexuality is a natural state, not a perverted choice as some would like us to believe. International protests broke out when zoo keepers tried to convert Roy and Silo using their own version of an ex-gay ministry - by separating them and introducing female penguins.

Christians and the conservative right brushed the story off. "Penguins are animals," they said. Animals do all sorts of things people would never do. That's what separates us from the animals.

Then along comes the summer surprise hit - March of the Penguins. The documentary tells the tale of the emperor penguin and how the male and female battle the harsh Antarctic winter for months on end to raise their little penguin. Christians latched onto the story as being symbolic of the importance of monogamous relationships and the need for a devoted mother and father in raising children. If we all were more like the emperor penguin, God would smile upon us and we would be blessed as individuals and as a nation.

While the Christians were busy praising the emperor penguin as being good role models for people to learn the God-inspired lesson of monogamy, faithfulness, and parental devotion to the children, something quite extraordinary transpired in Roy and Silo's household.

First, their daughter, Tango, grew up and paired off with another female penguin. Then Silo's eye began wandering after the pair were kicked out of their nesting area by more aggressive penguins. This past mating season, he caught glimpse of a female penguin from California named Scrappy. Silo left Roy for Scrappy and Roy has been left standing in the corner, alone and staring at the wall.

The Christian Right are beside themselves with joy. On the Focus on the Family website - a gay hate group founded by the influential radio host James C. Dobson - a commentator, Warren Throckmorten, wrote: "For those who have pointed to Roy and Silo as models for us all, these developments must be disappointing. Some gay activists might actually be angry."

Not exactly, though.

As Roberta Sklar, a spokeswoman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, put it: "There's almost an obsession with questions such as, 'Is sexual orientation a birthright or a choice?' And looking at the behavior of two penguins in captivity is not a way to answer that question."

Of course, that doesn't stop the Christians from pointing the accusatory finger. Silo and Roy went through a phase and in the process of going against nature, hurt a child by turning their daughter into a lesbian. If that isn't proof enough that homosexuality is unnatural and that homosexuals make bad parents, then the Great Social Experiment of allowing gay marriages and gay parents will surely bring the wrath of God upon us.

At least the penguins are dressed in formal attire for the Coming of the Lord's Wrath.

Oh, and in case you've read this far and are a little concerned: just because penguins waddle around all prim and proper in their tuxedos, that doesn't make them sophisticated Messengers of God trying to teach us moral behaviors.

They are living their life the way God created them to live it. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Be sure to visit Little Guy Protest and submit your bill to Congress asking them to repeal the Defense of Marriage act and reaffirm states' rights by honoring, without prejudice, individual state marriage laws.