In this as in many other issues we can recognise the unhealthy hand of religion. The monotheist religions, to the best of my knowledge, all consider homosexuality as a sin. Therefore homosexuals are denied the ordinary protections of the law and are treated as second class citizens. As the article indicates a woman subjected to a heterosexual advance cannot be exonerated from killing the man unless that is the only way she could get out of the situation.

The homophobic defence has religious roots. Religious bodies have the right to make judgments among their communicants. They should have no right to deny a citizen equal protection of the law because they regard the citizen's behaviour as a sin. As Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury said:

"In a civilized society all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.

Man's ultimate responsibility is to God alone."

Sinners as defined by religion should have the same protection under the law as the virtuous.

The author of this article is conflating the idea of self-defence, which is a complete defence against a charge of murder with HAD, which is only a partial defence which downgrades the murder charge to manslaughter.

There is a big difference between being found innocent by way of self-defence, and being found guilty of the lesser charge of mansalughter. In the second instance you have still committed a very serious criminal act and will (rightly) serve up to 14 years (in some jurisdictions murder is 28 years, manslaughter is 14 years) in jail time.

The response towards unwanted homosexual advances needs to be in context with the manner in which those advances are made. If a gay person made advances to me and was holding a knife to me, I would definately fight back and it may result in his death (or mine).
In a situation where you are not being threatened, ie a gay person sits next to you and tries to put his arm around you, or verbally propositions you, I think a simple "No thank you" is all that is required. If they were persistant, I would simply walk away

I thought the "provocation" defence had been removed due to Phil Cleary's lobbying since his sister's death.

"In 2004 the Victorian attorney general announced his government's intention to abolish the law of provocation. " http://www.philcleary.com.au/people_2005_phil_cleary_speaking.htm

Possibly a case, if it is only Victoria, for an Australia wide legal system. Does this mean every state has to fight for such a basic legal function? Now there's a candidate for some nation building policy.

The nature of the advance is not mentioned, neither is the youth's ability to retreat.

If the youth could easily have retreated, then it is murder, if not, then there is room for mitigation.

Without knowing the facts it is pretty hard to generalize. What has been spelt out is that the man was 35 and the young man (boy)) was 18. One should be able to go to a public toilet without being propositioned by someone who is deviant. We have had enough young lives ruined by priests, sports coaches, environmentalist and artist who seem to think it okay to proposition and molest young men.

No doubt it would of been better for the young man to flee before allowing his anger to kill the man in what was described as self defence.

david f blames religion and yet if more people were repulsed by such unnatural and unhealthy practices more boys would be saved the degradation of abuse.