Talk:Gay panic defense

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Nice article, Easter. Let me just suggest that the "punch line" -- that it has never been used successfully -- ought to come in the first paragraph. This is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper: you don't have to hold the readers' interest, just them know what they want as readily as possible. Then, point them to further reading.

My 2 cents.

Except that the punch line is wrong. The Gay Panic Defense is usually unsuccessful in winning acquitals, but it is QUITE successful at reducing culpability and punishments. The most famous case in which this occurred was the "Jenny Jones" case, where Scott Amedure was tried for the first-degree murder of Jonathan Schmitz and was instead found guilty of the lesser offense of second-degree murder. There are lots of cases where the perpetrators has used the Gay Panic Defense and been found guilty only of lesser included offenses and where judges have cited homosexual solicitation as a mitigating factor and given reduced sentences. If it NEVER succeeded, lawyers would give it up. Someone else 21:14 Oct 11, 2002 (UTC)
The attempt of the defense is to get a person aquitted of a crime due to temporary insanity because of the victim's sexual preference; that has never once in American judicial history occurred. And lawyers will never give something up if there is even the remotest possibility that it might succeed ;) But I will concede that it has succeeded in giving people lesser sentences. -EB-
Doesn't the content of the linked article, They asked for it, suggest that an acquittal has taken place in response to the GPD? --Planetthoughtful 17:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)
"Go ahead! Plead the unwanted homosexual advance defence! Cos you're going to lose, and you're going to go to jail, where you will discover truly what an unwanted homosexual advance is!" - Maggie Cassella
Hm. Are you stereotyping convicts as gay? Or gay convicts as rapists? Or just using rhetoric to put down bogus excuses for murder? --Ed Poor
The second one I suspect. Although neither rape nor the concept of homosexuality in prison is actually funny, the stereotype of prisoners being gay is partially true. There is actually a syndrome, and no I don't remember who coined it or where to learn about it, where a temporarily chosen preference of sex with the same gender occurs. Where one actually learns to prefer sex with someone of the same gender when they are the only gender around. (Generally people who typical behaviour of the opposite gender are preferred.) But anyway, it's just a common joke; if you go to jail, you'll be on the recieving end of anal sex. -EB-
Sounds like homosexuality could be a sexual preference and not only a fixed sexual orientation. Are you conceding this, E.?
I am saying that you can choose to do whatever you want. I could choose to stop having sex with men and instead have sex with women. I could also choose to gouge out my eyeball with a carrot peeler. That doesn't make me a heterosexual, it makes me a person having heterosexual intercourse. See the distinction? P.S. - I never argued the fact one way or the other. I personally believe that anything I am completely oriented towards doing and have been since early childhood is a genetic issue; but I've no proof, and until I do I'm open to all concepts and ideas.

Nice try though, puttin' words in my mouth ;) -EB-

LOL, I gotta get you on my radio show. You can definitely hold your own. Well, have a nice weekend, everyone! --Ed Poor
The last radio show I did was The Christian and Vince Show. U can download it from my site, www.mp3.com/easterbradford/ - they were a little too gay, even for me. (Oh no, I'm a self-loathing homosexual!) But they said I was good copy ;) -EB-

Maggie Cassella is a comedian. Co-me-di-an. -- Montréalais

What are the "Southern countries"? I guess America south of the USA, i.e., Mexico etc.?

It says "southern counties". I think that it means that the defense is used in Benington County but not in Essex County, for example. :-) -- AdamRaizen
I question that it's even true when referring to the southern United States. The most prominent example was in Wyoming, and the only other one mentioned in this article was in California, neither of which are southern states. --Delirium 11:01, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

The reference in this article to some fatuous remark made by an American actress is wholly inappropriate. Saradon talks about women being propositioned by men; this has got nothing to do with Gay Panic Defense which is by definition only relevant where an unwelcome gay sexual advance is made to a straight person.

User:MarcusVox

Was She talking about Gay panic defense when she made the remark? Beacause if she was, then the remark is appropriate imo.Theresa knott 09:17 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

No, Saradon was talking about unwelcome sexual approaches from males towards women --- this has got nothing to do with GPD which is - in its essence - a defence based upon the "offensiveness" (to alleged GPD sufferers) of a *gay* sexual advance. That's the whole point of the thing!

In both cases we're talking about an unwelcome sexual advance. Exploding Boy 00:02, Jul 15, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Oh, good lord

From the article:

The defense is often criticized. The problem being that if the non-homosexual has the potential to become “temporarily insane” and commit violent acts then the person is surely a menace to society and has no right to be in it. If a diagnosis of insanity is true then the best course of action would undoubtedly be to incarcerate the person indefinitely. The reason why defendants who claim "gay panic defense" are not imprisoned on the grounds of insanity is because all parties know that the grounds for such a diagnosis are fantasy. The whole idea of "gay panic" is not a matter of psychological fact but instead a fictional condition made up by homophobes. The term also illustrates America's social backwardness.

I removed this; it seems like it was mostly POV commentary and interpretation. I do think that more criticism of the defense is needed, but this is just one editor's rant. "The term also illustrates America's social backwardness?" Ugh. Aquillion 01:30, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Excellent work. I agree with you on both points. Perhaps I can help with some more criticism.... -HunterKiller360

[edit] An English Viewpoint and a Change in Legality

Have added the (rather quaint) British term for the defence, as well as CPS advice describing the legality of the defence in British courts. I assume the same will be true in US courts, although a case or similar would be useful to prove.

Would suggest an analyis of this defence not as a defence that is proven in fact, but as rather as an option defence lawyers give to the jury to allow them to acquit someone who has (as the jury see it) broken the law for good or justifiable reasons; perhaps joining it to the insanity defence used in the trial of Harry K. Thaw (for those not familiar with it, the defene was in essence the guardmans, but with the cause of the sudden madness changed from a homosexual advance to the fact that the victim had been commiting adultury with the defendants wife). However, this would take someone with more legal knoweldge than i currently posses...

[edit] Matthew Shepard

If it wasn't "gay bashing", then what kind of bashing was it? Didn't the killers testify that they killed Shepard due to his sexual orientation? -Willmcw 08:24, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


What they testified to in court is of questionable value because they were trying to mount a defense. What they said in prison after they'd been convicted (and no longer had any motivation to lie), inherently has more probitive value. In fact, in the lawyer's parlance, it would be considered a "statement against interest" for them to admit that they'd just killed the kid for his money. In any case, the only person who really knows for sure why the murderers attacked him are the murderers themselves and they've said that they attacked him for his money. So we have to take them at their word unless there's evidence to the contrary. --SpinyNorman 03:47, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
Their "word", under oath, was that they gay bashed him. That is plenty of evidence to for not believing as true something that they said later in a TV interview. It's fine to say that they recanted, but it would be wrong for us to judge the truthfulness of that recantation. -Willmcw 05:16, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
My understanding was that the judge barred the use of the "gay panic" defense. Is that not the case? --SpinyNorman 07:21, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
I haven't seen a report that specifically covers it. If I understand it correctly, the defendants argued that "gay panic" was the reason they'd committed the crime. The judge rejected that motion to use that as a defense because even if they proved that Shepard had made a sexual advance at them, and that they'd panicked, that would not have been a sufficient excuse for killing a person. Therefore it would not be a valid defense strategy. It'd be like saying you killed someone because they smelled bad. It may be true, but it's not a defense. Valid legal defenses would be self-defense, insanity, etc. -Willmcw 09:38, 23 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with homosexual panic

I think homosexual panic should be merged into this article, and then this article should be moved to just plain Gay panic. I don't think the other article has enough meat to qualify it for a separate article to its own. Comments? --TreyHarris 18:39, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

NO! The so-called "gay panic" defence is rarely if ever based in the clinical diagnosis of Kempf's Disease, or "homosexual panic". Carolynparrishfan 20:41, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
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