November 16th, 2011, 04:10
Toronto Zoo to separate 'same-sex' penguins
It's seems a cute and funny story, but it's really very serious. It touches on all sorts of issues like homophobia, survivalism, compassion for animals, The story is catching on globally in blogs, newspaper articles, late-night television comedy shows. It might tarnish Canada's reputation as a liberal society. In reality furor either for or against the scandal doesn't appear to be catching on too widely (far less discussion of the 'gay' penguins can be found as opposed to the Penn State scandal where a highly successful football coach has been fired for showering with boys). And many will be too worn down writing about it on long snowed-in days before the emergence of the result, which is at least a winter away.
Two male penguins at the Toronto zoo of an endangered breed and noted to have shown signs of affection toward each other will be separated and paired individually wiith female penguins for the coming mating season. Since the two male penguins would otherwise be able to freely associate amongst themselves and with the females by choice in the wild the act to separate them is clearly an intentional act by the zoo-keepers. Well, the strategy may be successful, but my take is that as presented it's a pretty risky venture of the animal keepers, and underlines western homophobic attitudes that public displays of affection between same-sex persons are abnormal.
Some links to get you started here:
Toronto Zoo to separate 'same-sex' penguins
google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=toronto+zoo+penguins&sourceid=opera&hl=en&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Was it homophobic to separate the Toronto zoo's 'gay penguins'?
news.yahoo.com/homophobic-separate-toronto-zoos-gay-penguins-151400649.html
It's seems a cute and funny story, but it's really very serious. It touches on all sorts of issues like homophobia, survivalism, compassion for animals, The story is catching on globally in blogs, newspaper articles, late-night television comedy shows. It might tarnish Canada's reputation as a liberal society. In reality furor either for or against the scandal doesn't appear to be catching on too widely (far less discussion of the 'gay' penguins can be found as opposed to the Penn State scandal where a highly successful football coach has been fired for showering with boys). And many will be too worn down writing about it on long snowed-in days before the emergence of the result, which is at least a winter away.
Two male penguins at the Toronto zoo of an endangered breed and noted to have shown signs of affection toward each other will be separated and paired individually wiith female penguins for the coming mating season. Since the two male penguins would otherwise be able to freely associate amongst themselves and with the females by choice in the wild the act to separate them is clearly an intentional act by the zoo-keepers. Well, the strategy may be successful, but my take is that as presented it's a pretty risky venture of the animal keepers, and underlines western homophobic attitudes that public displays of affection between same-sex persons are abnormal.
Some links to get you started here:
Toronto Zoo to separate 'same-sex' penguins
google.com/search?client=opera&rls=en&q=toronto+zoo+penguins&sourceid=opera&hl=en&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Was it homophobic to separate the Toronto zoo's 'gay penguins'?
news.yahoo.com/homophobic-separate-toronto-zoos-gay-penguins-151400649.html