HERE are two stories that raise the human spirit.
Mark Blair, who writes that homosexuals cannot reproduce and therefore has no evolutionary function, might find the first story very interesting.

Remember those gay penguins in the Bremerhaven zoo in Germany? Well, they are raising an orphan! How heartwarming is that?

Zoo keepers say the pair of gay male penguins is raising a chick from an egg abandoned by its parents. The egg was placed in the male penguins’ nest after its parents rejected it. The males incubated it for 30 days before it hatched and they have continued to care for it. They are parenting!

The zoo said in a statement on its Web site that “sex and coupling in our world don’t always have something to do with reproduction.” Hmmm, seems these anthropologists think there are other uses for the “incompatible” pieces of equipment besides baby-making!

Homosexual behavior has been documented in many animal species.

The second story involves reassurance from the refined form of religious belief declaring that “that true faith has no problems with science.”

The Roman Catholic Church paid an official visit to the CERN particle accelerator in France this week (the same one Mr. Daniel Singh incorrectly said is a Time Machine).

While there, Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo, the Vatican City’s governor declared that “Science will help our faith to purify itself. . . The Church never fears the truth of science, because we are convinced that all truth comes from God,”

Cardinal Lajolo said scientific truths could “correct some of our opinions” about scripture and faith. He said nothing in science could contradict the Holy Scriptures — only interpretations — because both were rooted in God.

Now for me, after years of battling religious fundamentalists who are scientifically illiterate, it is refreshing to listen to the words of an educated man of faith.
JUSTIN de FREITAS.