Penguins Do It Better

This just in - China has just celebrated its first gay wedding: two male penguins. Australia's 9 News reports:

The inseparable couple at China's Polarland Zoo [in Harbin] were originally shunned for stealing chick eggs from fellow "heterosexual" penguins but have proved their nurturing skills with abandoned eggs, The Sun has reported.

"We decided to give them two eggs from another couple whose hatching ability had been poor and they’ve turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo," a keeper from the Harbin zoo was quoted as saying.

"They have been a good couple and deserved their reward."

Their reward was a lavish wedding ceremony — complete with a soundtrack of the 'Wedding March' and a banquet of spring fish. One was dressed in a tie while the other sported a red jacket. [Red is the bridal color in China.]

The happy couple is not the first to defy penguins' tradition of lifelong "straight" partnerships. A pair of chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo made headlines in 2004 for their "ecstatic behavior" including entwining their necks, singing to each other and having sex.

Silo and Roy were devoted to each other for six years, even trying to incubate a rock by sitting on it. When zookeepers gave them a real egg to look after they successfully raised a female chick, Tango.

Tango was the subject of the 2005 children's book And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, which frosted a lot of conservative types all over the country, who tried to have it banned from libraries.