The Twinkie Defense, as presented by the media (and Hugo, apparently) is that his eating of junk food, specifically Twinkies, had contributed to his whacked-out state of mind; the Twinkies made me do it. An absurd defense, well worth the condemnation heaped on it, if someone actually made it.

The actual Twinkie Defense, as presented by White’s attorney, was that White was in an abnormal state of mind. One of the “proofs” of this abnormal state of mind was the fact that White, who was normally a health food fanatic, had been eating all kinds of junk food, including Twinkies, something he would never do if he was “himself”. Arguably an untrue defense (I have no opinion, since I didn’t know the man) but not an unreasonable one.

Not “Twinkies caused me to be crazy”, but “I am crazy, and one of the proofs of that is that I eat Twinkies even though I normally only eat healthy food.” No causal power was attributed to the Twinkies.

The defense was mocked as the “Twinkie Defense” because part of the evidence produced involved White’s consumption of junk food. There was a strong feeling in the gay community that such a defense would have been less likely to be accepted had one of the two victims not been a prominent gay man - the first openly gay supervisor (the other, of course, was the quite heterosexual mayor). Hence, the White Night riots.

In fairness to the “Twinkie Defense,” Dan White probably was not, in fact, the most mentally stable person in the world, given that he did eventually commit suicide after getting out of prison. On the other hand, lots of people with similar emotional problems still get convicted of first or second degree murder. So the gay community had reason to feel shafted. Also recall that in 1978, San Francisco (despite even then being one of the most gay friendly cities in the country) had only had the one openly gay supervisor - Milk - and California had an intensely contested ballot measure that tried to bar gay people from teaching in school (and lost), so, a considerably less gay friendly environment than now (even with the loss of Prop 8). White had been a police officer; the gay community already felt cops were hostile to them, and White the ex-cop getting away with a diminished capacity defense exacerbated that conflict (hence police cars were targetted in the riots that followed White’s trial).

I had just arrived in California for college at the time, and took part in campaigning against the initiative to bar gay people from teaching as soon as I got here. I remember where I was when I heard about Moscone and Milk being killed - student health center at Stanford - though I didn’t know much about either one yet.

I’ve seen Moscone’s grave - a plain flat plaque on the ground, identical to the ones surrounding it (Milk was cremated). My husband has a piece about Milk, Moscone, and White somewhere on his Tales from Colma site (http://www.notfrisco.com/colmatales/) - Moscone’s buried in Colma, a little town near San Francisco that houses many graves of San Francisco residents (cemeteries are sort of the town business in Colma, as they’re not allowed in San Francisco).

I was glad they left the White trial and the White Night riots all but out of the movie. The Twinkie Defense just riles me up like nothing else.

By the way, I’m impressed that San Francisco was “the City” as far away as Carmel. I’d always assumed that was limited to places within commuting distance.