Last August, Radio Netherlands reported that Amsterdam's Artis Zoo would begin conducting lectures and tours designed to "show off its homo- and bisexual beasts." THE SCRAPBOOK is not making this up -- and apologizes for not passing it along sooner.
"The idea behind it," zoo director Maarten Frankenhuis explained at the time, "is to show that homosexuality is a natural phenomenon." Artis, it turns out, boasts a lesbian chimpanzee, at least two geese in a long-term gay "marriage," and a flamingo lake stocked with birds who enjoy same-sex orgies. In the animal kingdom, according to Dr. Frankenhuis, none of this is considered peculiar, because non-human species "only have to listen to the bible of nature." And visitors to his zoo quickly realize that "they themselves, or their sons or daughters, aren't peculiar, either -- they just belong to a minority."
What kind of minority, precisely? Here Dr. Frankenhuis unwittingly stepped on his own message. For it turns out that animal homosexuality is "usually temporary." As soon as young boy beasts "manage to become the dominant male in the group, they will then mate with females exclusively."
In other words, the lesson would seem to be: Gay people are like animals rejected as too weak or otherwise unattractive by their opposite-sex counterparts. That can't be right, can it?