Senate Homosexuality: the Thread

And thats how it should be. If two people love each other and wish to marry then they ought to be able to. Period. Done.

 

Is there a word for men like me who are unabashedly aesthetically attracted to men but who are unequivocally not even remotely interested in their organ or any sexual activity with them whatsoever?

I think it's quite possible that Paul Walker is the most attractive human being of either sex who ever existed.

(I have fantasized a handful of times about participating in some kind of MMF romp, but the arousal therefrom is entirely derived from how much the F in the scenario is getting off on the spectacle.)

 

Homoaesthete, maybe?

I have a friend who finds neither men nor women sexually attractive (they are asexual) but they can and do find them aesthetically pleasing. Though I am not asexual, there are certain people I see and think, "They look beautiful", but it never translates to me wanting to be involved with them sexually.

 

Virginia becomes 12th state to ban 'gay/trans panic' defense.

 

What the ****? How is that not banned in every state.

 

Because a lot of states still have Republican governors and/or legislatures.

 

It’s also so few. With something like that I would expect it to be much more. The defense is. Someone was so mad at finding out someone was LGBT they murdered them. And they should get less of a sentence because of it? If I understand it correctly. Isn’t that the pure definition of a hate crime.

 

I had to look up what it was, hadn't heard of it before and then, when I did....

 

The moment when you learn something you wish you were still blissfully ignorant of.

 

Imagine how ****ed you need to be to murder someone and then on top of that murder them because they are different than you.

 

Not only that, but use hatred as a defence in court and receive a reduced sentence as a result. Any law that reduces the culpability of a murderer based on the victim's membership of a group, undervalues the lives of all members of that group.

 

I am a straight, married man, and whilst I have no sexual attraction to men, I can at least appreciate the good looks in some men. I was watching "The Tudors" the other day with my wife, and I had to comment that Henry Cavill in it most certainly won the genetic lottery. That guy is one handsome dude.

 

US State Dept. says embassies can fly PRIDE flags.

 

Rings a little hollow in a country where the gay and/or trans panic defense is still allowed in most states (as mentioned above), but I guess it’s better than banning U.S. embassies from flying Pride flags,

 

You know I wonder if the federal government tried to ban the trans/gay panic defense would it even pass the 60 votes needed in the senate? I am not so sure about that.

 

A more possible scenario (though not highly likely due to the current make-up of it), would be for a 'trans/gay panic defense' to eventually make it's way to the Supreme Court and for the Court to rule that type of defense unconstitutional.

 

How often has the Supreme Court ruled that someone can't argue a defense in court? Not that the argument was not persuasive, but that someone can't argue it?

 

Probably never? I'm not sure how they'd ever get to hear such a case. Prosecutors don't get to appeal. If a defense attorney argues for an acquittal or some sort of lesser charge based on gay/trans panic, and the jury buys it, that's that. There's no taking it to a higher court.

There's probably some avenue there for demonstrating that "gay panic" and "trans panic" are not real things, or at least that they're not any more exculpatory than straight-up hatred based on race, color, creed, sex, or national origin are. A ban on the gay/trans panic defense could possibly be folded into protections for the "sex" suspect class, a position which the Roberts Court showed some sympathy toward in the Aimee Stephens case last year. But to answer your question more directly, I actually don't know what it is that keeps unethical defense attorneys from arguing abject nonsense, such as: the Devil made him do it; he suffers from this fake syndrome I just made up right now; or he found out she was trans so he was somehow compelled to kill her. It's probably a combination of the Bar Association's ethics rules, judges' willingness to find attorneys in contempt of court if they fantasize too wildly, and jurors' general refusal to believe things that are obviously not true. None of those things are really in the Supreme Court's purview.

 

I think they might hear it more if there was someone penalized for using a defense, and that was what was appealed. So that seems like the court couldn't rule on gay/trans panic defenses, but that they could rule on laws that bar particular defenses. Unless I'm missing something.

That last bit, in particular was much of what motivated the question. It seems, naively, like it's much more about jurors not accepting it, but not that the government decides which defenses are allowed to be made, more broadly. Though there's certainly some defenses that have some level of special standing (like self-defense).

And this very much is meant as a very 'technical' question regarding how courts handle this, not about the actual validity of them. So I do appreciate that context being understood.

 

It's kind of ridiculous that you have to rely upon activist justices in order to make this type of change. Is there not any legislation which the federal government can pass which makes it discriminatory to have such a defence, overriding state law?

 

I hadn’t either....holy crap. Seriously? I’m speechless on that one. The fact that something like that was ever passed or allowed in the first place is possibly worse that it’s still around. IMO, every crime against a person is "hate" driven if it’s violent in any way. What’s this "gay panic" defense? Who the hell whipped that up? Geesh.

 

Im with you - I have no problem recognizing that a man is good looking. Me and wifey are watching the TV show Bridgerton and she's all over this handsome, young man. He's another gene pool success story, LOL! Rege-Jean Page

 

There is some sort of discredited early 20th century “expert” who still gets quoted about it now and again, but it’s mostly an extension of the belief that being born with a dick means you’re a sexual predator at heart. Rigid gender roles and enforced heterosexuality—traditional marriage, particularly—are supposed to somehow act as a restraining force on men’s “animalistic” urges. Something to do with guys all standing over “their” women with shotguns pointed at the other, salivating guys in a mutually-assured destruction scenario.

Men who operate outside this framework, due to being gay, for example, are like mad dogs off their chains. There’s nothing to prevent them from running around raping everything they see. Or so the story goes. So if a gay guy hits on you, or sits near you, or exists within time and space in some capacity, you have to physically incapacitate or kill him immediately so he doesn’t rape you to death. That’s basically the thought process behind “gay panic.”

The trans panic defense is usually invoked by people who have killed or maimed trans women, who are presumed to be men for the purposes of the argument. Being trans has nothing to do with what gender(s) you’re sexually attracted to or whether you want to be a tradwife or a bra-burning gender outlaw, but that doesn’t seem to matter to the sort of people who mount trans panic defenses. Trans women are just presumed to be more rogue men who don’t respect “the rules” and therefore must feel free to go around raping everyone.

All of that’s irrespective of the fact that there is zero evidence that men—cis, trans, or whatever other categories there might be out there—are born rapists. I doubt anyone is, honestly. There certainly are a disturbing number of guys who will openly admit that they’d commit sex crimes if they thought there would be no consequences, but I don’t think they came into the world destined to be like that. I think that actually they were taught weird things about men’s “rights” to women’s bodies.

Largely off-topic for the thread, but I think that’s your answer.

Edit:

Hawt. See, that’s on topic.

 

Geesh. Ive heard it all now. Even if a gay man looked at me and found me attractive.... so what? Sorry we got off topic, I was just wondering where that all came from. Thats just whacked.

And yes, just ask my wife: Rege-Jean Page is certified HOT.