It turns out that animals can have same gender spouses
The New York Times has this enormously long feature in its magazine titled “Can Animals Be Gay?”, which made me do a double-take as I found the incredibly absurd headline in bold Georgia typeface next to a pair of fluffy chicks.
Status quo dictates that animals are not supposed to be gay. Bambi is married to Faline, Mickey Mouse has Minnie Mouse, and Lady has the Tramp. Disney defines nature as heterosexual.
But this new knowledge about animal relationships completely destroys status quo. My view of sheep and bunny rabbits shall forevermore be changed. It’s spring and bunnies are hopping in pairs everywhere, but are they really the ideal bunny couple that I thought they were?
Any word that has to do with “gay” has a negative meaning. People use the word in the place of “stupid”, “immature” or whatever other derogatory word that comes to mind. Because in a sense, what makes the entire notion that animals can be “gay” absurd is that the word’s connotation doesn’t match up with the images. Innocent little animals being…gay?
Maybe we should rethink the slang that we use. Maybe there is some new made up term that’s cool enough to replace “stupid” that doesn’t offend someone. Or maybe that’s the point of a bad word in the first place: it offends and insults people. We might as well go old-school and stick with “stupid.”
Meanwhile, nature will be nature and animals will still continue to be happy. In the San Francisco Zoo, there was a penguin couple that split and then each divorcee took a new spouse of the same gender. All four of them are perfectly happy. Their original couple’s son now has two dads and two moms and is also happy.
Also, their son’s name is also happens to be Chuck Norris.
