Carlos and Fernando are - in the current politically correct argot of UCD - queer as coots. They are, however, not coots, but inseparable male flamingos at Slimbridge Wildfowl Reserve in England, writes Kevin Myers.
Twice a year, after performing the mateship dance of flamingos, one enacting the male role, the other the female, they build nests, then steal eggs from other flamingos, which they hatch, and raise the chicks like ordinary pairs.
Carlos and Fernando are lucky that they found one another, each hard-wired with the similar but complementary intentions. So how do two homosexual flamingos agree to steal eggs, fight off the natural parents and proceed to raise the chicks? Haven't a clue. A miracle of nature - and one, moreover, which should teach science modesty.
Though the unisex avian home might be unusual in animal circles, homosexual activity is not. Cows regularly mount one another. Some Japanese macaque monkeys are lesbian, and different tribes of female oran-outangs in Borneo have entirely different ways of achieving sexual pleasure, alone and with one another: in other words, they have distinct and peculiar sexual cultures, which females transmit within their all-female treetop tribes.
All of which suggests that the homosexual urge can be both a matter of genetics and of environment, and is perfectly natural.
It is monogamous marriage which is not entirely natural. It is a created institution but, nonetheless, one that works. Certainly, married men are happier than unmarried men; however, the degree to which spinsters outlive their married sisters suggests that marriage is more in the chaps' interest than that of females. Generally speaking, men are quite appalling at making homes; but women, like our queer flamingos, make homes perfectly naturally. And it is this very difference between the sexes which is the essence of marriage.
But Vincent Twomey, the professor of moral theology at St Patrick's seminary in Maynooth, was not even speaking of marriage when he said: "A Catholic citizen or politician cannot vote for so-called 'civil unions' between people of the same sex." Firstly, Prof, congratulations on having the nerve to stand up for Catholic teaching. Not many of your crowd dare raise a nose above the pulpit these days, other than to bleat about all opinions being valid. But that said, what does "cannot vote for so-called civil unions" mean? Are you saying it is sinful for a Catholic politician to vote for civil unions, rather as a generation ago the Catholic Church - in a rather more confident mood than that whipped, craven, apologetic creature slinking around the place today - declared that it was sinful to allow divorce? If it's not sinful, then what power lies in your term "cannot"?
Moreover, there is nothing "so-called" about civil unions; that is precisely what they are, and what the State should be allowing homosexual couples to enjoy. It is a civilised way of giving to loving partners the protection, rights and privileges which married couples have. But the term "marriage" cannot apply to such unions. We are not flamingos, after all. Marriages must have a groom and a bride, just as a coach must have a horse before it becomes a carriage. Merely because multicultural, I-feel-your-pain, I've-forgotten-who-I-am Canada uses the term "marriage" for its civil unions doesn't make them anything of the kind. It can call Saskatchewan the Himalayas with about as much effect.
For if same-sex couples can have marriages, can they have annulments on the grounds of non-consummation? Can they also have grounds for divorce, such as adultery? But what are consummation and adultery for lesbians, when they cannot have intercourse, and their sexual activity is, in essence, mutual masturbation? Are we to take sodomy as legal consummation for male homosexuals? And should homosexuals of either sex expect or sue for alimony if one divorces the other? Anomalies, anomalies: the inevitable consequence of pretending that wheat-fields are mountain ranges.
To be sure, the concept of civil union also leads to certain, if manageable, anomalies, as law often does - the most obvious being, classically, the two spinsters who live together in chaste companionship. It is surely unjust that they would not enjoy the protection of our inheritance laws for spouses, which they would have if civil unions were recognised in law, but only if together they jointly engaged in pelvic recreations. And it would be clearly wrong to make them falsely swear to having a sexual relationship simply in order to enjoy the inheritance and other rights of lesbian couples.
However, it is not difficult to envisage legal methodologies to create a certain legal consistency between couples who live together asexually and those who cohabit in a sexual relationship. Nonetheless, those in a permanent homosexual relationship cannot properly "marry", no matter what ceremonies they have gone through, any more than I can say I am a Hottentot, when a Hottentot is what I am not.
No, it's not fair, but then neither if life. Half of mankind can have babies, and the other half can reverse cars into narrow parking spaces in somewhat under a year. Half of mankind can have two-hour telephone conversations about food, and the other half has no one to telephone. What is merely the fleeting tense between past and future for the he-half of mankind is what the distaff part cannot visit a she-friend without bringing. That's it. Marriage is between the two complementary halves of mankind, the union of opposites. And just because Carlos and Fernando think they're married, it doesn't mean they are. But just don't tell them, all right? Flamingos have feelings too, you know.