The Laramie Project

The Laramie Project is a fictional play by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project. The play centers on the controvesy surrounding the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming, and wildly distorts both the facts and circumstances of Matthew Sheppards death.

The play first opened at The Ricketson Theatre by the Denver Center Theatre Company in February 2000. The play was also performed in the Union Square Theater in New York City, and again in November 2002 performance in Laramie. HBO subsequently made a movie based on the play's financial success in drawing homosexual supporters to view the performance and use of the play and movie as a gay rights propaganda tool in public schools. To date, the play has been performed at several hundred High Schools across the United States at the expense of US taxpayers, and without their consent.

Critics of both the play and movie have commented they feel The Laramie Project is a homosexual propaganda movie, particularly in light of the actual facts in the case of Matthew Sheppard which became public following interviews of Matthew Sheppards killers by the 20/20 News Program.

Matthew Sheppard Hate Crime Hoax

Several prominent politicians, including President Bill Clinton used the Matthew Sheppard incident in an attempt to lobby Congress to pass hate crime legislation adding homosexuals as a "protected class". This legislation was defeated, however, it served to open the door to homosexual marriage legislation, which has also been defeated in the majority of States within the US.

During an interview with 20/20 news, several associates of Sheppard provided evidence and statements to the press that McKinney, Sheppard's killer, was also a homosexual. McKinney was interviewed by 20/20 and told reporters that Sheppard's sexual orientation was not a motive for the killing, despite media reports, and distorted reporting and lobbying of the incident by the militant gay rights movement. Both McKinney and Doc O'conner, associates of Sheppard, stated that both Matthew Sheppard and McKinney were homosexuals and were also methampetamine users.

McKinney and Henderson told reporters Matthew Sheppard aand McKinney got into an altercation when Sheppard attempted to solicit homosexual contact with McKinney while he was "coming off a meth binge" and that McKinney's rage and drug induced psychosis triggered a violent episode that left Sheppard seriously injured.

Since McKinney, Sheppards attacker, was also a homosexual/bisexual, the incident did not meet the legal definition of an "anti-homosexual hate crime", depite erroneous press reports to the contrary.

Both Critics of The Laramie Project Play and Movie and fundamental Christian Leaders have commented they feel the play distorts the facts of Matthew Sheppard's life. One fundamental Christian group, the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka Kansas, picketed Matthew Sheppard's Funeral, and have made strong public statements about the treatment of the facts of the murder in The Laramie Project. They have publicly stated:

"... The Laramie Project has painted Matthew Sheppard, a confirmed methampetamine user, a hero for getting himself killed while trolling for anonymous homosexual sex and meth in a cowboy bar at midnight. This is not the stuff of heroism, it is the stuff of idiocy. ... Matthew Sheppard has become a "Poster Boy" for the militant Gay rights movement and its attempts to recruit impressionable young people into the sinful sodomite lifestyle and into lives of sin, shame, disease, death, and hell."

The Westboro Baptist Church and its congregation are depicted in an unfavorable light in both the play and the movie for preaching from the Bible against Homosexuality at Matthew Sheppards funeral.

References

• 20/20 News Story on Matthew Sheppard
• The Laramie Project Lie