Penguin fun for everyone

The religious right has embraced the penguin lifestyle in the summer's documentary film hit, "March of the Penguins," as reported here recently. The penguins, they say, offer some life lessons about monogamy, faithfulness, and other virtues.

Not so fast, says this AlterNet article:

Monogamy? As Scott Lamb pointed out in Salon, these penguins get around. They switch mates with each new mating season, which makes for some pretty slutty birds -- and change the operative question from "What Would Jesus Do?" to "Who would Jesus Do?" (And an earlier Salon article, which tells the incredible true story of two male penguins in love, adds another twist.)

This is the most cynical misappropriation of someone else's messages since the Republicans started pumping their fists in the air to Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA." (Or, for that matter, since Reagan decided to name his space program Star Wars, a move George Lucas resents to this day.) In all, conservatives' embrace of March of the Penguins is pretty ironic, coming from a nexus of religious groups that justify backburnering environmental issues because with the Rapture at hand, we don't need to worry about the next generation's planet anyway.