Gay giraffes probably more prevalent than straight ones...
Homosexual behaviour in giraffes is thought to be more prevalent than heterosexual behaviour;
Same-sex greylag geese couples have been known to raise chicks together in life-long unions.
Same-sex spotted dolphin pairs stimulate each other using sonar in a move Flipper-ologists have nicknamed genital buzzing.
Until the late 90s, researchers who encountered same-sex steaminess in the animal kingdom tended to ignore, downplay or frame it as non-sexual.
Petter Bockman was the scientific adviser to Norway's notorious 2007 Against Nature? museum exhibition featuring homoerotic swans and gay whale phallus fencing. He says researchers have customarily described same-sex animal activity as "competition, a form of greeting, ritualised combat, things like that, even when we are talking full anal intercourse with ejaculation".
Now, however, homosexual behaviour is recognised in more than 1500 species, including hyenas, cheetahs, bison, bears, sea otters, kangaroos, hedgehogs, scarab beetles, vampire bats and, last but obviously by no means least, bighorn sheep.
Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan, became international media stars when their keeper revealed they were raising a chick after previously trying to incubate a rock.
News that animals can be as queer as folk has -- understandably -- been seized on by activists as indisputable proof that homosexuality is as "natural" a human state as heterosexuality.
But while such studies are an essential counter to the homophobic observer bias previously found in that alleged bastion of objectivity known as science, extrapolating from animal to human behaviour is precarious.
Giant pandas in mating programs, for instance, are responding well to watching steamy films of other pandas playing hide the bamboo shoot. Is this a ringing sociobiological endorsement of pornography?
Female bonobo apes engage in sapphic sex almost hourly. Does this mean the human union movement should agitate for routine workplace lesbo breaks?
And, when not humping the living daylights out of other chaps, male giraffes swill females' urine to detect fertility. Should the manufacturers of human contraceptive products be worried?
No, fascinating and thought-provoking as they may be, animal sexual habits are like Rorschach inkblot tests: squint hard enough and you'll see whatever you want.
The argument that natural occurrences automatically have moral worth is also suss. Rape, infanticide, snuff sex and necrophilia are all common in the animal kingdom yet no one's agitating for more humans to hop into these unattractive practices.
In truth, biological determinism can't be used to determine anything except that animals and humans are biologically exuberant and highly resistant to sexual pigeon-holing.
The strongest argument in favour of same-sex marriage is actually ostrich free: it's that a significant portion of the population really wants it for really good reasons, and the case against simply doesn't stack up.
Wednesday's dinner was full of long-term, same-sex partnerships; full of loving, committed people (often with kids) who just want equal access to an institution that -- for all its faults -- remains the zenith of Western coupledom.
"Twelve years ago, when I married Jackie in New York city, we were making a very personal statement of love and commitment to each other," former Australian Medical Association president Kerryn Phelps said of her wedding to former school teacher Jackie Stricker. "What had started out as a private and intimate ceremony soon became the subject of talkback radio discussion, newspaper opinion pieces, dinner party conversations, television documentaries and current affairs stories . . . we felt shocked, violated, overwhelmed. As a citizen of this country, I really should not have to be here arguing for the basic right to have my relationship acknowledged and respected by the laws of the land."
In Australia, homosexual hitching remains illegal because Labor and the Coalition are bipartisan curious on the issue. On February 25, a Marriage Equality Bill introduced by Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young was defeated 45 votes to five. This was despite polls showing that most Australians support the right of gays and lesbians to say "I do" in some form, making anti-gay marriage moral conservatives the recalcitrant minority in this picture.
Hypocrisy is also a huge issue given that holy matrimony's much vaunted sanctity and solemnity is routinely flouted by heterosexuals in forms ranging from tacky accoutrements (consider the high-heeled bridal sneaker) to infidelity (currently estimated to affect about 41 per cent of marriages if emotional unfaithfulness is also included).
And, given present divorce rates, what are we to make of the federal government's recently tweaked definition of marriage as "the union of a man and a woman to the exclusion of all others for life"? At best, it's wishful thinking. At worst, it's fraud.
Rather than devaluing conventional conjugation, the fact that gays and lesbians are fighting so very hard for access suggests they may be less likely to take the institution for granted and, ironically, be more likely to uphold its old-school values.
Acknowledgements: The Australian
info@emmatom.com.au
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/homosexual_behavior_in_animals
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