Scalia's rude gesture--c'mon!

I am an Americans United supporter and share your distaste for many of the policies and beliefs exhibited by Justice Antonin Scalia. But I take exception to the piece in your May issue about his "obscene gesture" ("Supreme Court Justice Scalia's Rude Gesture Sparks Debate In Boston," People & Events, May Church & State).

First, I fail to see what this has to do with church and state. Many of us, myself certainly included, treat ourselves to a gesture from time to time that may not be proper in the best society. Your item may tell us something--but not much--about Scalia's personality, but c'mon! Stick with the subject.

Second, the gesture as described, fingers under the chin, is not obscene, and for the Boston Herald to consult no less an authority than a TV actor on the subject makes the whole thing a joke.

Checking what is probably the foremost authority on the subject, Andrea de Jorio's Gesture in Naples and Gesture in Classical Antiquity (Indiana University Press, 2000), I find just one gesture that fits the description: "Outside tips of the fingers pointed under the chin and pushed forward forcefully," page 291.

The paragraph, in the chapter headed Negation, goes on to define the gesture's meaning: "the gesturer wishes to show that he wishes to distance his head from whatever is offered to him or proposed that does not please him." (Your readers will agree with me that the translator who could write such an awkward sentence should be fined and given 20 lashes, but that's another story.)

As a child I saw the gesture used many times, and often by women who would never let a word as coarse as "damn" pass their lips. It merely meant I want no part of it, no way, forget about it.

--Frank Scalpone

Pleasant Hill, Calif.