William F. Gavin on a recent ” dramatization of an ideological act of faith “:
There I was, watching yet another Law and Order re-run on TNT. In this episode a scientist claimed to have discovered a gene for homosexuality. During the second half of the show, the district attorneys had their usual strategy pow-wow. Executive Assistant District Attorney Michael Cutter suggested the murderer might be an angry homosexual, because if there is indeed a homosexual gene it could lead to abortions by “homophobic” parents.“That could lead to the elimination of an entire community,” D. A. Cutter said, obviously troubled.
I waited for one of the other characters to say something like: “But, Mike, that’s what abortion-on-demand does, eliminates communities. Hell, it eliminates whole populations. Gay, straight, male, female, black, white, whatever.”
Or, perhaps the resident Hot Babe Assistant D.A., a staple character on the show, could have said: “Mike, it’s a woman’s right to choose to kill her unborn child, even if she is a homophobic monster. We cannot make the choice for a gay-bashing, community-destroying, pre-life killing Nazi woman under those circumstances.”
But not a word was spoken by any character about Cutter’s concern. The highly educated, sophisticated, articulate, well-informed politically liberal characters — created by writers who share the same backgrounds and beliefs — went on trying to build a legal case, as if nothing odd had occurred.
