Eliminate the 'gay panic' defence from Queensland law #gaypanic

Why This Is Important

A Victory for Common sense, but caution is advised. In Australian Common law, a loophole exists that allows people accused of murder to defend themselves in court by claiming “gay panic” or “homosexual advance”. -- that is, if someone who they think is gay “comes onto” them, or if they think they experiencing a homosexual advance towards them, the sheer panic they feel is partial justification for murder. This common law defence is available unless overridden by effective legislation. Some states have effectively eradicated this archaic partial defence by legislation. Recently the Queensland government, committed itself to “change the Criminal Code to remove doubts about how and when a partial defence involving a sexual advance can be used and remove doubts about the so-called “gay panic” defence.” The LNP opposition party also said: “the State Opposition will consider findings of a legal committee’s examination of the non-violent sexual advance defence.” Whilst this is a victory for common sense and very heartening news, it is not yet complete, and there are still concerns that proposed legal amendments will not entirely solve the problem. I recommend that people continue to sign this petition to send a message that we are watching and monitoring to ensure that the legal loophole really has been definitively closed, including the barring of evidence of alleged homosexual advances being brought up in general evidence of the circumstances, due to its highly pejorative nature. Continuing to sign this petition is our way of holding the parties to their commitments to “never tolerate violence against any person” (LNP) and that “the Queensland Government does not believe that anyone should be able to use a claim of non-violent homosexual advance to reduce a conviction from murder to manslaughter.” This petition continues so that we are wanting to make it clear that this intention is actually realised and that changes do actually achieve this satisfactorily. This common law precedent (which belongs in the dark ages) – was affirmed by the High Court in the notorious Green case in 1997, when a man responded to “gentle touching” by brutally murdering his victim. The killer’s argument was this: “Yeah, I killed him, but he did worse to me.” Just over two years ago, a man was murdered in my church’s grounds, and his killers used this same “gay panic” defence. They were eventually acquitted of murder. I’m utterly appalled that a law defence that so revoltingly and openly operated in a way that discriminated against gay people could have been tolerated so long in a modern society. The “gay panic” defence acts to legitimise and reinforce a culture of hate which means that 73% of gay and lesbian Queenslanders are subjected to verbal abuse or physical violence for their sexuality. Other State governments moved quite a long time ago to effectively abolish the use of such common law defences, and refuse to admit evidence of non-violent homosexual advances in murder trials, and we await to see whether things will effectively be different with these proposed changes. Queensland was one of the last states to keep open the availability of this common law defence, the idea that a person can be panicked enough by gay and lesbian people to justify grievous bodily harm and murder. In addition, the mere introduction of this evidence pollutes jury deliberations. The proposed Queensland changes (which we have yet to see the report on or the recommendations or the proposed legal wording details), may not adequately deal with issues of evidence of general circumstances. In the statements by both the Government and the LNP they make a quite odd statement that they cannot remove the provocation defence entirely because of problems of ensuring that battered spouses can use the partial defence in response to domestic violence. I am very angry at this assertion as I feel it is an emotion-ladened distraction and I believe it is not correct to say that. They should both know that this issue has been dealt with quite effectively in other states, namely Victoria, and that a separate head of partial defence actually already exists in the Queensland Code to deal with cases of domestic violence. If they felt that was inadequate they can shore that up separately. I am very angry that this persistent red herring keeps being thrown in when it clearly can be dealt with in other ways. The Victorian law reform report that led to major changes in that state’s criminal law has a lot of good advice on this topic, and the differences in sentencing issues for murder in those two states does not affect the excellent observations and conclusions about these issues. . That’s why I am calling on the Queensland parliament and LNP leader Campbell Newman to ensure that this law is actually and effectively eliminated. Please continue to sign this petition to keep vigilance over this issue so that this law as a partial defence for murder will be effectively and completely eradicated, and that the law also effectively forbids non-violent homosexual advance being treated as evidence in any murder trial. Please sign and help eliminate this antiquated, 17th century defence from our law books. Now is not the time to stop our vigilance, because it is yet to be seen whether the problem will effectively be solved.

Why People Are Signing

Recent Signatures