Petition to ACLU regarding the Gay Panic Defense

To the American Civil Liberties Union:

Since the American Civil Liberties Union has long strived to protect freedoms and highlight the abuse of such freedoms, I am signing my name to this petition to ask for ACLU support to take actions to help to eliminate the "Gay Panic" defense in the U.S. legal system. The Gay Panic Defense (GPD) first emerged as a legitimate legal defense in the 1967 court case People Vs. Rodriguez, and it has continued to be used today in the cases involving the murders of gay men. It is a strategy in which heterosexual males place the blame for a crime on the victim's sexuality--claiming that the victim made a homosexual romantic advance towards them which caused them to go into a panic state and commit murder.The American Psychiatric Association's official list of disorders, however, has not recognized 'Homosexual Panic' since 1952. Yet the defense, while no longer based on a legitimate psychiatric disorder, still thrives in our court rooms today.
What's perhaps most shocking is its effectiveness. Joseph Biedermann was recently acquitted of first-degree murder in a Chicago court, after stabbing his neighbor 61 times after the use of Gay Panic Defense strategies.The use and subsequent successes of this defense strategy not only gives the unacceptable impression that murder is an acceptable response to a homosexual advance, but its legitimacy is based on a disorder that is no longer recognized. Thus, because ones sexuality or perceived sexuality should not be a mitigiating factor in court, the Gay Panic Defense needs to be eliminated from our legal system in order to make it truly equal for all.