LGBTQ Bills Headed for Senate Vote

HARTFORD — Two bills that support the state’s gay and transgender community could come up for a vote in the Senate as early as next week.

Senate Bill 58 would prohibit criminal defendants from using a “gay or transgender panic” defense, claiming that they assaulted or killed someone because they became panicked during an unwanted, non-forcible, romantic encounter. The prohibition would also apply to those in a dating relationship.

Proponents of the bill invoked the brutal killing 20 years ago of Matthew Shepard during testimony before the Judiciary Committee, which voted it out before its deadline.

Shepard was beaten and tortured in Laramie, Wyoming, by two men who claimed as their defense that Shephard made sexual advances which sent them into “a fit of uncontrollable homicidal rage,” said Nicholas Kapoor, a member of the state’s Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, in his testimony in support of the bill.

Read more: https://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/20190501_lgbtq_bills_headed_for_senate_vote/