ACOMSDave

Community Journalist

The Portsmouth Defence by Jeff Dudgeon

By Leave a Comment

Portsmouth DefenceThe Portsmouth Defence – every solicitor and barrister knows the traditional defence to utilize when defending a client accused of murdering a gay man when there is no other legitimate defence available.  Its name indicates that it originated in medieval times in seaports when mariners were caught on rolling/robbing their homosexual clients or victims.

Brief Heroes

It is simply this – the deceased made a pass in the form of a smile, a word or a touch, at my client.  being a man he beat the pervert to death/strangled him/repeatedly stabbed him.  Judges especially, juries less so, are susceptible to this defence.  Sometimes killers have been acquitted, even become brief heroes, as in the George Brinham case in the 1960s when a Labour and Trade Union politician was butchered in London.

Macho Sentiments

Obviously, if females, subjected to unwanted attentions, disembowelled wolf-whistlers, the male population would plummet.  But judges, being men, instantly warm to the macho sentiments aroused at the notion of innocent heterosexual manhood threatened by oily homosexuals.

Fate Worse Than Death

Nowadays, acquittals would be rare, but the continued use of the Portsmouth Defence is designed to get the charge reduced from murder to manslaughter and the sentence reduced accordingly.  this still works even though in every other case a murder rap would hold unless it was self-evident that had the defendant not attacked the victim his own life would have been in jeopardy.  \but, to the conservative judiciary, being touched up or smiled at by a queer is a fate worse than death.  It is plain that in 99% of such cases the gay victim is offering no violence at all, just checking the other guy out or using a little verbal persuasion.

A Local Crop

In the recent Addis (Portadown) and Hagan (\belfast) murder cases the victims made a suggestion through porno pics and divesting himself of his clothes respectively.  \both were brutally done to death.  their killers received light sentences and the Portsmouth Defence was used.  this was in courts in Northern Ireland in the 1980s where the establishment continues to think of gays as less than human and their killers as less than criminals.  A test case will occur soon in a trial relating to a killing in Ballymena where the Portsmouth Defence has already been used in a bail application.

Casual Violence

It is important that the legal establishment is made aware of the new social and legal status that gays now enjoy.  And that we will no longer tolerate such frequent murders.  The Director of Public Prosecutions – who decides what charges to prefer – and whether to accept plea-bargaining to get a lesser charge preferred, has to take account of social change and modern literature*.  If for no other reason than that, anti-gay tugs (and their homosexual counterparts), will continue to use massive violence on gay victims in the sure knowledge that the courts will see their crimes as slight!

 

*Attacks on Gay People by Julian Meldrum (CHE) 1977 – A comprehensive and meticulously researched casebook (Currently out of Print)

 

 

Amazon Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Campaign for Homosexual Equality (1 Aug. 1981)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 48 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 095044295X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0950442952

Links:

 

This article was first printed in Gay Star No 10, a copy of which is held in the archive of the Linenhall Library

 

Chinese Court Takes Historic Step Toward Advancing Same-Sex Marriage

By Leave a Comment

Nation of Change
By Samantha Cowan –
china-same-sex

A court decision regarding one man’s right to marry his partner could come down in the next six months.

|With the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to legalize same-sex marriage in June, more than 20 countries across the Americas, Europe, and Africa now recognize unions between two men or two women. Yet not a single Asian nation has joined them. That may be about to change.
Movement within China’s court system indicates that the world’s most populous country could be the first in Asia to join the ranks.
Advertisement
A Chinese court has agreed to hear a case that could grant a same-sex couple the right to marry, Reuters reports.
Sun Wenlin, a 26-year-old gay man hoping to marry his partner, filed a complaint against the Changsha Furong District Civil Affairs Bureau, which denied his request to register the marriage, in Hunan province in December. Sun told Reuters that a local court agreed on Tuesday to hear his case.
Whether the court sides in Sun’s favor, even the decision to hear the case is a step toward LGBT equality.
Related
These Same-Sex Couples Couldn’t Get Married in China, So They Came to America
“In China, courts often reject politically sensitive cases, so the fact that the lawsuit is accepted signals some official willingness to address discrimination against LGBT people, which is encouraging,” Maya Wang, a China researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Reuters. “But we will need to see if they actually win the case. If they do, it’d be a truly watershed moment for LGBT rights in China.”
China decriminalized homosexuality in the late 1990s and took it off the list of official mental disorders in 2001. Since then, the unofficial attitude toward homosexuality is what’s known as “the three nots” approach: “not encouraging, not discouraging, and not promoting.”
Sun states that after he filed the complaint, police attempted to investigate his home and approached family members. He told the Global Times that the police officers who came to his home emphasized the importance of having a child and carrying on the family name, reflecting the nation’s more traditional values. LGBT people living in China are banned from adopting a child and are not protected under antidiscrimination laws, according to international organization Out Right.
Sun is confident in his case, telling Reuters that China’s marriage law “says there is the freedom to marry and gender equality.” He also notes that national laws describe marriage as being between a “husband and a wife” rather than a “man and woman,” and that such labels could be applied to homosexual couples.
This article was originally published on TakePart.
http://www.nationofchange.org/news/2016/01/06/chinese-court-takes-historic-step-toward-advancing-same-sex-marriage/

Gay marriage is a matter for Stormont

By Leave a Comment

newsletterlogo
 
 
 
16:52Tuesday 01 December 2015
Same Sex MarriageSame-sex marriage in Northern Ireland is for Stormont to decide on, the Attorney General told a court today.
John Larkin QC described it as an issue of “pure social policy” that should be left with the devolved administration.
His assessment came in proceedings brought by a gay couple whose marriage has no legal recognition in their native Northern Ireland.
The two men claim that being limited to civil partnership status within the region amounts to unlawful discrimination.
They are seeking a landmark declaration that their marriage remains fully constituted throughout the UK.
Granted anonymity in the case, the petitioner ‘X’ and his husband wed in London last year.
But under current laws they can only be classified as civil partners in Northern Ireland.
Legislation passed in the rest of the the UK and the Irish Republic allows same-sex couples to marry.
Last month Stormont voted in favour of the same change in law for the first time.
However, the Democratic Unionists blocked it by deploying a mechanism requiring the proposal to achieve a cross-community majority.
The petition, backed by gay rights group The Rainbow Project, has been taken against the Northern Ireland Assembly and the UK Government.
In first case of its kind counsel for X and his husband claimed their marriage has been “demeaned, devalued and undermined” by the situation.
The ban breaches rights to privacy and family life, religious freedom and entitlement to marry under the European Convention on Human Rights, it was contended.
X and his husband were able to wed in England following the introduction of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Act 2013.
As the case resumed at the High Court today, Mr Justice O’Hara asked if the same same legal position should apply throughout the UK.
The Attorney General replied: “No, it’s a matter of pure social policy … being a transferred matter it’s for the devolved administration and the Executive.”
Mr Larkin insisted that the 2013 Act was clear, irrespective of how long a couple spend married in the rest of the UK.
He added: “It doesn’t matter, this is a general provision under which every same-sex marriage is for the purpose of the law in Northern Ireland treated as a civil partnership.”
The case continues.
Read more: http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/northern-ireland-news/gay-marriage-is-a-matter-for-stormont-1-7094948#ixzz3tBSPIjAh

Could one court ruling force Northern Ireland to allow gay marriage ?

By Leave a Comment

Gay couple married in England are hoping to have their marriage recognized in Northern Ireland
| BY JOE MORGAN
Northern Ireland's gay marriage ban could be overruled this week.

A gay couple married in England could be the key in same-sex marriages being recognized in Northern Ireland.
In a court ruling this week, to be heard at Belfast high court, a decision could lead to the UK as a whole allowing gay couples to get legally married.
The couple, who have asked to remain anonymous, will call on Northern Ireland to make a declaration their marriage remains lawfully constituted where they are living now and should be recognized on Thursday (15 January).
John O’Doherty, director of The Rainbow Project, is backing the couple.
‘We are very happy to support this important legal challenge. While same-sex marriage legislation in Westminster had many positive aspects, we believe that its provision forbidding the recognition of lawful same-sex marriages in Northern Ireland is irrational, contrary to principles of British constitutional law and incompatible with the European convention on human rights,’ he said.
‘We are resolute in our assertion that no one can be married in one part of the United Kingdom and then not married in another.
‘Once a couple is lawfully married in the UK, we contend that their relationship cannot be reclassified as a civil partnership without their consent, which is exactly what the law currently does.
‘The legislation says to lawfully married people that they are no longer married. This is unconscionable and cannot be permitted to continue.
‘Marriage is a fundamental human right, which is now recognised in the UK as including same-sex couples. We will work to ensure that this right is realised for everyone in the United Kingdom and we are confident that marriage equality will be achieved in Northern Ireland.’
Without the ruling, Northern Ireland is expected to be the only main part of the British and Irish islands that ban same-sex marriage by the end of the year.
Ireland itself will be voting in a referendum in May. In the last Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll, it found 71% supported marriage equality in Ireland.

– See more at: http://www.gaystarnews.com/article/could-one-court-ruling-force-northern-ireland-allow-gay-marriage130115#sthash.QY9YasKu.dpuf