So ugly

WARNING: This post is not for children, virgins and saints
I’ve followed the Ng Boon Gay case pretty closely as well as many other court cases involving sex but I can’t recall a time I’ve felt as uncomfortable as today.

The court is already trying to grapple with this question of corrupt intent – and now it has to deal with what is love? Sheesh. If the prosecution is a representative of the State, then I dread to think that the state views trysts in a car as NOT love, not going to a hotel to make out is NOT love, declining overseas trips or dirty weekends is NOT love. Actually, it’s no business of the state…and I certainly hope this view isn’t being perpetuated in schools and civics lessons.

And what’s love got to do with it anyway? It’s an extra-marital affair that’s been going on for some time (according to the defence) or which had stopped (according to the prosecution). They are both adults and it seems like we are watching them in some kind of B-grade teen flick with questions like Do you love me? On a scale of one to 10?

I remember the prosecution making clear that it wasn’t about to police morals, so I guess the prosecution’s defence of its line of questioning is that it was forced to choose this tack to unpick the defence’s case that they were having an affair. I mean, the prosecution even got Ng to define DIY. (If you don’t know already, you shouldn’t be reading this).

It’s all so ugly.

So ugly that I’m beginning to lose sight of what the case is about. I gather the question turns on whether a public servant should receive anything, anything at all, from someone he or his organisation might, or already have, business dealings with. Never mind if nothing actually pans out.

Actually, it sounds like something that should be in some instruction manual for public servants. In any case, whichever way the court rules, I wonder how extensively that manual or code of conduct (so many these days…) would have to be re-written.