It's Not Gay Panic, It's Murder, It's A Hate Crime

Marco McMillian

Marco McMillian, an openly gay candidate for mayor in the small Mississippi town of Clarksdale, was beaten and burned, and his body dragged under a fence and left alongside a Mississippi River levee. The cause of death has not been released. An autopsy was performed, but toxicology tests are pending, and authorities say it could take two weeks to get those results.

McMillian's godfather, Carter Womack, says the family received the information from the Coahoma County coroner, though coroner Scotty Meredith has yet to publicly comment, and a spokesman for the Coahoma County Sheriff's Department is also staying quiet for now.

A statement released by McMillan’s campaign says, "We feel that this was not a random act of violence based on the condition of the body when it was found."

Lawrence Reed, twenty-two, has been charged in the case. He was arrested last month after he was found driving McMillan’s SUV after it crashed into another vehicle on U.S. Highway 49. McMillan was not in the car; his body was found the next day.

Police have ruled out a hate crime—something McMillian’s friends and family members want reconsidered due to the brutal nature of the homicide—because, sadly, Mississippi does not have a state hate crimes law, meaning that federal charges would be required.

Lawrence Reed

Apparently Reed and McMillian had known each other for about two weeks, and may have had an intimate relationship during that time. But, it is also being reported that Reed, who identifies as straight, may have “snapped” as a result of sexual advances on the part of McMillian. He may, in fact, use the Gay Panic defense.

Gay Panic. I’ve talked a lot about gay panic on this blog, especially after ALLEGEDLY straight men murder gay men with whom they were intimate. And I’ll say it again: there is no such thing as Gay Panic in defense of murdering someone, beating them to death, burning parts of their body, and then dropping the corpse off in the weeds like a load of garbage.

That took planning; that took preparation. That is not panic.

And, if we are to continue hearing of Gay Panic defenses, when will we hear the first Straight Panic case? I mean, say I, as a gay man, met a woman at a bar and we hit it off. If she made some kind of sexual advance toward me would I be allowed to beat her, burn her, drag her body to the river and dump it, and the say I did it because I felt a Straight Panic?

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Well, that's how Gay Panic sounds to me. 

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