This is awful (via):
A 28-year-old man has been charged with murder after telling police that he stoned a 70-year-old man to death for making homosexual advances toward him, authorities say.
John Joe Thomas, 28, of Sunshine Road in Upper Darby, spent almost every day with 70-year-old Murray Seidman at Seidman’s Lansdowne home, police say. Days before Seidman’s body was found on Jan. 12, Thomas allegedly beat Seidman to death with a sock full of rocks.
Thomas reportedly told authorities that he read in the Old Testament that homosexuals should be stoned to death. When Seidman allegedly made homosexual advances toward him over a period of time, Thomas said he received a message in his prayers that he must end Seidman’s life, according to court documents.
If you read the full story, you’ll see that it’s likely that this was really a money-motivated murder: John Joe Thomas was the sole beneficiary of Murray Seidman’s will.
gypsy howell
God told him that money was his
Tonybrown74
Fucking gay panic defense …
I am a single gay man and have no desire to be in a relationship (at least at this point in my life). I hope, if i live to be as old as the victim, that I do not fall for some young swindler just because I may feel lonely in my old age.
Chris
Isn’t the Koran just awful? Thank God this would never happen in America.
Oh.
Fuck.
Max Peck
Check out the girl with the dragon tattoo. Apparently the Bible is chock full of instructions for killing sinners.
West of the Cascades
The article says the killer was the “sole executor” of the will – not necessarily the sole beneficiary (but it doesn’t say that he wasn’t a beneficiary, or “the” beneficiary).
Zifnab
Yeah, imagine someone doing this to a straight guy.
Comrade DougJ
@Tonybrown74:
Yeah, I think he’s aiming for gay panic defense too, he just wanted the money.
Ash Can
Hell, with a story like that, it looks more like he’s going for a flat-out insanity defense.
toujoursdan
The Bible is full of death penalty offences but it was almost impossible to carry them out.
Essentially, in order to receive the death penalty the accused had to be told that what they were about to do was a death penalty offence AND the accused had to acknowledge that it was an offence at the time the offence was committed. Then it had to be witnessed by 2-3 (?) males. Then the accused had to acknowledge what they just committed was an offence. Then it had to go to trial in front of 23 judges. The criminal’s own confession is not accepted as evidence and circumstantial evidence is not admitted. A unanimous guilty verdict meant that the accused couldn’t be put to death because it was thought that the court was swayed by emotion.
It was said that a court that sentenced someone to death once every 7 years was a bloody court.
By 30 AD the bar to receive the death penalty had been raised so high that it was essentially banned by Jewish courts.
Comrade DougJ
@toujoursdan:
Links?
BGinCHI
Man, those 70-year-old gay guys can get really pushy and aggressive when you spend every day at their house.
Thank god he defended himself with a Second Leviticus remedy.
Roger Moore
@toujoursdan:
I think that probably depended a lot on the era. It may have been very difficult to get a death sentence by the end of the Second Temple era, but one gets the impression that justice in the time of the Judges and Kings was pretty bloody.
Redshirt
Rev. Lovejoy: “Have you actually read this thing (waves Bible)? Technically, we’re not allowed to go to the bathroom.”
New Yorker
This is why I don’t base my system of ethics and morals on ancient middle eastern mythology.
shortstop
@BGinCHI:
Nicely done.
someguy
@toujoursdan:
I’m pretty sure you’re talking about the 2nd Circuit there but I’ll take your word on it.
Asshole
Wasn’t “Thou Shalt Not Kill” near that part of the Bible somewhere?
SiubhanDuinne
The story is horrible. But DougJ, I do like a man who quotes from Porgy & Bess.
drkrick
@toujoursdan:
By 30 AD Jewish courts within the Roman Empire had no right to enforce a death sentence – the Romans reserved that power exclusively for themselves.
mellowjohn
agree w/ siubhan that it’s always good to get a gershwin shout out.
thank you, sportin’ life.
gex
Maybe if the MSM didn’t continually have hate-mongers on to discuss gay issues. The tired comparison is they don’t ask the Klan about social policies, why ask homophobes? They normalize homophobia and make it socially acceptable. Media and political leaders run around screaming about all the stuff gay people are up to…Well, they just give him an easy cover-up story. And far to many cases of gays getting beaten like this go unpunished. There are a lot of people in our society who absolutely think it is okay to beat/kill a gay guy who (you think) is coming on to you.
Mnemosyne
Are the courts in Texas really this stupid? As in, is there a chance in hell that a guy who will financially benefit from the victim’s death will be able to pull a “gay panic” defense and get off scott-free?
After all, this is the state where a jury acquitted Robert Durst because apparently dismembering your victim’s body and throwing it into a bay is just one of those things that happens after you kill someone in self-defense. Who among us hasn’t done something like that, amirite?
jafd
Hello, Mnemosyne, and all readers of Balloon Juice,
Not Texas – Lansdowne, Delaware County, Pennsylvania – about 10 miles WSW of downtown Philadelphia, a commuter rail station surrounded by hundred-year-old McMansions.
Where the aging ‘prosperous white ethnic working class’, yuppies from the UPenn complex seeking a ‘starter home’, blacks looking for better schools and services than West Philly’s, Quakers and wannabees of Lansdowne Friends School, live together. One of the metro area’s noted homophobes dwelt there a few years back, attracted counter-demonstrators to his street. He left, “Lansdowne – No Place For Hate” campaign begun, improved civility and quality of local debates.
I moved there in ’05, left last year (out of work, couldn’t afford to keep own place). Would happily live there again. Didn’t know victim, but probably passed him on the street a few times. He was retired, mildly retarded.
Local reaction mainly “Poor guy – what *&#$% could do something like that to someone like _him_ – how could something this terrible happen _here_”
Accused likely to get scrupulously fair trial, and book thrown at him if found guilty.
http://www.delcotimes.com probably has best reports on this.