From the NYT: Can the word “gay” still be used as an insult?
Not according to an appellate court in Albany, which last week issued a ruling that in its judicial effect stripped the word “gay” of any derogatory connotation. It is now no longer considered slanderous in the State of New York to falsely call someone gay. Gay has, in the eyes of the court, as it has in the minds of sane people, lost currency as an accusation. Say I chose to live my life as a telenovela and decided to break up my best friend’s wedding by announcing in a rehearsal dinner toast that her husband was gay. That husband would now have as little ground for a lawsuit against me as if I had described him as blond, pigeon-toed, happy or merely mediocre at Texas Hold ’Em.
In arriving at its decision, the court erased decades of rulings that treated inaccurate descriptions of sexual orientation as defamation. “These appellate division decisions are inconsistent with current public policy and should no longer be followed,” the unanimous decision, written by Justice Thomas Mercure, stated.
What took so long? Continue.
