Matthew Shepard
Matthew Shepard (1976-1998) was an American college student from Wyoming. On October 7th, 1998, he was savagely beaten and robbed by two men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, and died on October 12th. The killers were heavily involved in drugs and had met Shepard in a bar, giving him a ride afterwards.
Homosexual activists and the liberal media converted this drug-related killing [1] into a hate crime even though the prosecution never described the killing as a hate crime.[2] Activists claimed even before the details of the crime were known that the murder was due to anti-gay bias. Once the crime was discovered, Shepard's friends "were calling the County Attorney's office, they were calling the media and indicating Matthew Shepard is gay and we don't want the fact that he is gay to go unnoticed."[3]
A misguided defense of one of the killers tried to make an issue of Shepard's homosexuality in order to employ a ""gay panic defense" based upon the defendant's alleged prior homosexual experiences, but this was rejected by the judge.[2] In fact, at least one of Shepard's killers claimed in an interview on ABC's "20/20" that money and drugs motivated their actions that night, not hatred of gays.[3] One of the girlfriends of the accused testified that they had planned to pretend to be homosexuals so that they could rob Shepard.[2]
During the trial, the girlfriends testified that Henderson and McKinney both plotted beforehand to rob a gay man. McKinney and Henderson then went to the Fireside Lounge and selected Shepard as their target. McKinney alleged that Shepard asked them for a ride home. After befriending him, they took him to a remote area outside of Laramie where they robbed him, assaulted him severely, and tied him to a fence with a rope from McKinney's truck while Shepard pleaded for his life. Media reports often contained the graphic account of the pistol whipping and his fractured skull. It was reported that Shepard was beaten so brutally that his face was completely covered in blood, except where it had been partially washed clean by his tears.[4][5] Both girlfriends also testified that neither McKinney nor Henderson were under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time.[6][7]
Ever since Shepard's death it has been cited by homosexual activists to promote legislation to classify attacks motivated by the sexual orientation of the victim as hate crime that would be punished more severely than were it performed for other reasons. All legislation, both in Wyoming and on the national level, had previously failed, but Congress passed a hate crime bill which was signed into law in October, 2009. It is the "Matthew Shepard & James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act."
External links
- Matthew Shepard Murder The Daily Camera.
References
- ↑ Ben Fritzen, a former police detective, said, "Matthew Shepard's sexual preference or sexual orientation certainly wasn't the motive in the homicide... What it came down to, really, is drugs and money." Washington Times Editorial 8/10/2007
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 http://www.courttv.com/archive/trials/mckinney/110399_verdict_ctv.html
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 20/20 News Story on Matthew Shepard
- ↑ Loffreda, Beth (2000). Losing Matt Shepard: life and politics in the aftermath of anti-gay murder. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0231118589.
- ↑ Chiasson, Lloyd (November 30, 2003). Illusive Shadows: Justice, Media, and Socially Significant American Trials. Praeger. ISBN 9780275975074.
- ↑ The Daily Camera:Matthew Shepard Murder. Archived from the original on 2008-04-24. Retrieved on 2006-04-06.
- ↑ Black, Robert W.. "Girlfriend: McKinney told of killing", The Daily Camera, October 29, 1999.