Lyle Shelton’s Family First Party Accuses Sydney’s Gay Penguins Of Faking It

Former managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby and conservative politician Lyle Shelton has accused Sydney Sea Life aquarium’s famous gay penguin couple Sphen and Magic of faking their gay love story. 

Shelton’s Family First party has called on parents to boycott the aquarium. 

Shelton, who was dumped by conservative MLC Fred Nile in 2021, and now leads the Family First party, has a history of targeting the LGBTQI community. The politician who once led the campaign against marriage equality has in the past railed against everything from rainbow flags to the rainbow path in Sydney. 

His new target is queer love in the penguin world. Last week in a press statement, Shelton claimed the aquarium’s “fake gay penguins” were being used to “indoctrinate children”. 

Sydney’s Gay Penguins

Sphen and Magic’s gay romance first went viral in 2018, when staff at the Sydney aquarium noticed the two Gentoo penguins swimming together and becoming inseparable ahead of the breeding season.  The staff first gave the couple a fake egg to practise their parenting skills and subsequently a real egg to foster.

Since then, Sphen and Magic have raised two chicks together and have been termed the “most devoted couples in the penguin colony”. 

Last month, NSW Teachers Federation announced that Sphen and Magic’s story would be part of the school syllabus to teach kids about rainbow families. 

Shelton Rails Against Gay Penguins

Not surprisingly, Shelton saw red. The political party claimed that the “two male penguins had been manipulated from the very start.”

The statement claimed that “when these two were given eggs to incubate together, this would have encouraged them to stay together for future breeding cycles and effectively stopped them from seeking out female partners.”

The party accused the federation of using the story of the gay penguins to  “promote same-sex relationships to little children.”

“So essentially what should be a story about the damage caused by human interference in the animal kingdom is instead being served up to our youngest, most impressionable children as education on thriving gay relationships and diverse parenting arrangements,” said Family First, adding,  parents of NSW be warned. The next school excursion going to the Sydney Sea Life Aquarium is surely one to miss.”