First Rant of '09

from Towleroad: Two teenage brothers are being held in the tragic strangling death of a Las Vegas high school choir teacher. They claim he did it because the teacher, Matthew Cox, who was found dead on a couch with a blanket over his head by a friend who was there to check on his pets because Cox was supposed to have returned home for Christmas, made inappropriate sexual advances. However, the teens also stole electronics from the victim.

Here is what we know:

--17-year-old Juan Aguirre told them Cox started to get sexual in the hours before the alleged murder. Aguirre's 18-year-old brother, Jose Delatorre, also arrested in the death of the Basic High music teacher.

--According to the police report, the teens were getting a ride home from Matthew Cox.

--Cox pulled up to the boy's mother's apartment, and both boys strangled Matthew Cox for approximately 10 minutes.

--The two brothers then drove back to Cox's apartment and dumped Cox's body before stealing electronics.

--The mother of both suspects is accused of helping them abandon Cox's car at a nearby casino.

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I am so tired of this "gay panic" defense used by murderers of gay men. I mean, if you're not gay, and a gay man comes on to you--and we all know that gay men will come on to any man, because that's what we do, that's all we do--why not say, simply, "Sorry, I'm not gay." and walk away? Why strangle the life out of someone? Why dump their body? Why, then, steal from them?

Because it wasn't any gay panic. It was two teen boys who are thieves and found themselves an easy target. A gay man who was leaving town for the Christmas holidays. They could beat him, kill him, and rob him, and no one would find the body for a few days because Cox was going back to Michigan for Christmas.

So, now they're caught, and what do they cry? Gay panic. What in the hell is 'gay panic'? I mean, say I go out with Carlos for a lovely dinner, and we're sitting at the bar waiting for our table, and a woman comes up to me, and....gulp....comes on to me. Now, that could happen, because I am kinda cute, but I digress. Does that slip me into a straight panic where the only way out is murder? And imagine how the media would play up that angle as some kind of joke.

But when straight thugs kill a gay man, whether he came on to them or not, gay panic is a justifiable defense. Because gay is deviant, and to have someone think you're gay, or God forbid, come on to you, then murder is the only way out. It plays into that old chestnut line about gay men being pedophiles and child molesters, because, again, that's all we do. Except when you add in the robbery, and dear old Mom helping the boys dump the car.

What a lovely family.

What a panic.