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Photo by Sea Life Sydney Aquarium / The New York Times

The penguin keepers had a discussion.

“We made the decision within the penguin team, and no one was against it,” Lawrie said. “Any pairs that want to pair up, it’s great.”

They alerted aquarium leadership that there were going to be two male penguin parents. The aquarium executives embraced it.

The aquarium put out a video of the pair singing to each other. There is a video of them making their pebble nest.

Visitors now come just to see the new gay parents, and ask tour guides which were the gay penguins.

There were those who objected to use of the word “gay.”

“The word ‘unnatural’ was used a lot,” said Samantha Antoun, the aquarium’s public relations manager. “People said we shouldn’t call them gay because maybe they’re just friends.”

The penguin keepers said they would bring no politics onto the ice.

“We’re not going to discourage any companionship for our penguins,” Lawrie said. “Love is love.”

Penguins are born with the ability to raise chicks from start to finish whether they're male or female, and that's quite an interesting thought to keep in mind

The first sign of a good Gentoo parent is that they’re able to recognize an egg has hatched and that the chick is slowly breaking its way out. This can take days. Sphen and Magic noticed straight away.

“When it’s got its face out, it can start talking to its parents, and Magic and Sphen recognized this and started singing to the egg before it even hatched,” Hannan said.

Their chick — for now called Sphengic —was born on a Friday and weighed 91 grams, or 3.2 ounces. It was the only chick to have hatched of all the eggs in the colony.

For the first few months of a chick’s life, it stays close to its parents. Sphen and Magic feed and sing to the chick. They tuck it into bed at night. The chick needs to have its head faced toward the parents when it sleeps under them, so parents use their beaks to keep it in proper position.