Monday, May 28, 2007

All Our Rights

I attended the launch of All Our Rights - a campaign to repeal the "Homosexual Panic" defence. This defence is used by straight men who murder gay men. The argument is basically that for some straight men, the mere existence of a gay man causes the straight man to panic and beat the gay man to death. Therefore there was no intent to kill, therefore the killer deserves a lesser sentence (No Right Turn has a good post on the campaign).

It is less than a week since Judge Michael Lance imposed no penalty on Craig Busch for assaulting his partner. The judge said that Craig Busch's violence was the 'human and inevitable' response to seeing his partner in bed with another couple.

I don't believe jail does anyone any good. I don't support the judicial system. I'm not even really arguing for tougher sentences. If Craig Busch's sentence was the standard sentence for assault, I wouldn't complain.

What I am arguing against is a judicial system that openly states that some of us are not fully human and deserve violence.

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous2:11 pm

    I've seen literally hundreds of comments online of people saying they would do 'exactly the same thing' as Busch did to his partner. Many women are standing up for him and there is lot of bandying about the 'whore' word with regard to his ex partner.

    It's disgusting.

    Personally I think there should be serious consequences for abusing your partner so badly they are still recieving treatment and cannot work years after the assault in question.

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