When New York headline writers drop the "g" from the present continuous tense, the newspaper should come with a warning label: stupid-ass, faux-folksy thumb-speak inside.
Consider the recent column that appeared under the headline "Courtin' trouble" in the New York Daily News. Errol Louis is taking that just wonderin' approach to his column on Assembly's vote to legalize same-sex marriage in New York State.
That's urbane, erudite, Harlem-born, New Rochelle-raised, Harvard-educated Errol Louis who is suddenly just thinkin' aloud the repercussions of the legislators' historic vote - because, you know, folks out there are worried about incest and polygamy:
There are disturbing signs all over the country that conservatives were right to predict that proponents of odd and radical sexual practices would try to slip through the political and legal doors opened by the gay rights movement.
All over the country, mind you. In one Ohio case, a man jailed for having sex with his adult stepdaughter is appealing his sexual predator status to the U.S. Supreme Court and plans to cite the overturning of Ohio's old statutes banning gay sex in private. Writes Louis:
In Lawrence, the high court ruled in 2003 that state laws banning gay sex in private were unconstitutional, citing "an emerging awareness that liberty gives substantial protection to adult persons in deciding how to conduct their private lives in matters pertaining to sex."
That sounds perfectly fine - but what will happen when this live-and-let-live attitude bumps up against the yuck factor of voluntary incest?
Excuse me, sir, but the yuckfactor is all over your damned newspaper. And your intolerance and bigotry seeps into the creases. Louis should answer a simple question: why does gay adult sex have any greater relation to the crimes of incest and polygamy than straight adult sex?
Instead, Louis wonders aloud where all this homosexual legalizing his really heading, er, headin':
...it's obvious that New York's steps toward legalizing gay marriage won't trigger the collapse of civilization.
But advocates of same-sex marriage should recognize that you don't have to be a religious fanatic or a bigot to wonder, with a certain uneasiness, where all of this is heading.
Yes you do.
