jims-whim:

The ‘Gay Panic’ defense has always been appalling to me, going back to the “Jenny Jones Murder” (as it was called at the time) of Scott Amedure, but it’s use in this particular case is beyond the pale for me.  This is the type of latent homophobia that is going to continue killing kids until we all step up to face it and actually do something about it.

To give a point of reference, with my own personal spin, because…Hey, it’s my blog, right?…When I was 15, like Brandon McInerney, I was constantly flirted with by girls my age.  I was this closeted, young, Gay kid who was pretty much completely screwed up in the head about sexuality.  I’d experimented with both genders at far too young an age, was deathly afraid that I might actually be a “faggot”, and could never quite figure out how to not reciprocate these advances without looking like they were unwelcome.

So…knowing that about me, imagine 15-year-old me walking into class one day and point blank shooting one of those girls in the back of her head while she sat at her desk.

Do you think that my defense at trial would even consider a defense that called those girls “sexually aggressive” harassers who pushed me to an “emotional breaking point”?  I know that in a lot (if not most) rape trials, the victim is made out to have been “asking for it” and most people find that morally reprehensible, correct?

Where’s all the outraged morality in these ‘Gay Panic’ cases?  Why do these defenses continue?  Because, as we saw in Scott Amedure’s case…it works.