If Blaze Bernstein was LGBTQ, then those separate categories have no meaning. How could Blaze Bernstein be a lesbian? Was he trans?
Unfortunately for the accused murderer Woodard, in 2014 California banned the gay panic defense in murder cases.
Women who are hit on can complain about men “assaulting” them which would probably justify taking violent action to deter them, yet when a homosexual assaults and batters (which unwanted kissing is) a straight person, he is precluded from raising that as a defense.
Woodward would go on to tell detectives that Bernstein had kissed him, according to a law enforcement source who was unauthorized to discuss the case publicly and requested anonymity. Woodward, the source said, also told investigators he had wanted to call Bernstein a “faggot.”
Now, Woodward, 20, has been charged in the death, and prosecutors are trying to determine if Bernstein is a victim of a hate crime.
“This is a senseless murder of a young man who possessed a combination of a high-caliber mind and the heart of a poet,” Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said Wednesday, calling the killing an “act of rage.”
…Woodward’s parents, he noted, go to church “almost daily,” and his mother has participated in the bereavement ministry.
The parents wrote in an email to The Times that “our son was a beautiful gentle soul who we loved more than anything. We were proud of everything he did and who he was. He had nothing to hide. We are in solidarity with our son and the LGBTQ community.”
How many people want to do good deeds in the name of someone who is publicly identified as queer?
Blaze Bernstein never formally came out to his parents as gay. But they had an idea. When his mother, Jeanne Pepper Bernstein, tried to broach the subject, Blaze brushed her off and preferred to remain quiet.
It was understandable, the parents said. He was still trying to explore his identity and his world as a college sophomore at University of Pennsylvania. He didn’t want to be viewed in just one way, they said. He was still growing up.
“Well, I will tell you this. I do have a lot of gay friends,” Blaze told his mother at the beginning of this school year.
“That’s great, Blaze. I just want you to know that I love you,” she told him. “I think it’s great and I want you to bring someone you love home and stay in our house and have holiday dinners with them.”
“Great, maybe I will,” he said.
That was the last time they talked about it.
The 19-year-old, home on winter break from the college, disappeared Jan. 2. He was found eight days later in a shallow grave in Orange County’s Borrego Park. He had been stabbed at least 20 times.
Perhaps a lesson from this story is that if you are gay, you don’t try to do gay things with people who are not gay.
