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Michigan set to become 20th state that bans ‘gay panic’ defense in court – LifeSite

(LifeSiteNews) — The LGBT agenda is about the score yet another victory under pro-abortion Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

During the last week of June, state lawmakers in Michigan voted in favor of legislation that bans “gay panic” defenses in court.

MLive.com reported that “under the proposed Michigan law, a person would not be justified in using force against another based on the discovery or knowledge of the victim’s sex, gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation.”

Back in 2013, the American Bar Association recommended banning the defense, which it said seeks to “partially or completely excuse crimes such as murder and assault on the grounds that the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity is to blame for the defendant’s violent reaction.”

While lauded by LGBT activists as a tool to prevent the deaths of persons due to their sexual orientation, in practice the measure seems designed to prohibit a person from engaging in self-defense from a hostile homosexual or a gender-confused person.

Pro-LGBT website Advocate has highlighted one such instance of the “gay panic” defense. In 2014, two black men were arrested for using physical force against two gender-confused men who came onto them while they were using the city’s public transit system. One of them told local media that he doesn’t “hate gay people at all” but that he had to defend himself when they wouldn’t stop harassing him.

Another instance would be if a man who goes on a date with someone he believed to be a woman but later finds out he is biologically a male, the man might react with force to remove them from their presence or dwelling space. The law could presumably be used to find them guilty of a crime.

Thus far, 19 states have outlawed the defense, according to MLive.com.

Testimony for the bill was first heard last fall, but lawmakers did not vote on it until last month. The measure passed along party lines with Democrats holding narrow majorities in both chambers of Michigan’s legislature.

Bisexual Democratic state Rep. Laurie Pothusky of Livonia sponsored the bill, claiming that “this defense (makes) crimes against the community carry less weight, because we are inherently less human, and therefore less valuable.”

States that have enacted “gay panic” legislation include New Jersey, California, New York, Maine, Hawaii, Nevada, Illinois, and Connecticut, among others.

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