Nurture Versus Nature At The Zoo

by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff

February 7, 2004

(New York City) Roy and Silo haven't a clue what Stonewall was.  They don't much care to discuss gay rights either.  And, don't dare ask them about same-sex marriage.  All you will get is a blank stare.  But, they are as together as couple can be.

Silo and Roy are chinstrap penguins and they reside at New York's Central Park Zoo where gay rights take a back seat to the occasional sardine.

Nevertheless they are completely devoted to each other and for the past six years have been inseparable.

Zoologists will quickly point out that it is an over simplification to say they are gay, but exactly what binds the two is a mystery.  And, Roy and Silo are hardly unique to the animal world.

Animal sexuality is a relatively new field.  The first book on the subject, Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, unleashed a torrent of condemnation for the Christian right.

In 1999, Bruce Bagemihl published Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity.  It provided an overview of scholarly studies of same-sex behavior in animals. Bagemihl said homosexual behavior had been documented in some 450 species. Last summer the book was cited by the American Psychiatric Association and other groups in a "friend of the court" brief submitted to the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, a case challenging a Texas anti-sodomy law. The court struck down the law.

So, does it then follow that because homosexuality is observed in animals does it follow that it is genetically based?  Not necessarily Bagemihl tells the New York Times.  "Homosexuality is extraordinarily complex and variable," Bagemihl told the paper.

"We look at animals as pure biology and pure genetics, and they are not." He noted that "the occurrence of same-sex behavior in animals provides support for the nurture side as well."

That has led to a whole new field in biology and zoology, and it has both gay activists and conservatives watching intently.

Meanwhile, back at the Central Park Zoo, Silo and Roy are "necking" and having sex.  Lots of sex.  When they were offered female companionship, they ignored the ladies. And, it seems, the females aren't interested in them, either.

Their chief keeper, Rob Gramzay, tells the paper, that Silo and Roy seemed so desperate to incubate an egg together that they put a rock in their nest and sat on it, keeping it warm in the folds of their abdomens. Gramzay finally, he gave them a fertile egg that needed care to hatch. Things went perfectly. Roy and Silo sat on it for the typical 34 days until a chick, Tango, was born. For the next two and a half months they raised Tango, keeping her warm and feeding her food from their beaks until she could go out into the world on her own.