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Not a lot of tolerance there. Not a lot of allowance for diversity. Oppose the promotion of
homosexuality and be branded a homophobe. But beyond the nature of this fringe web site from
someone completely invested in the disorder and his promotion of Matthew as a Christ like figure, was
the quote from the article that gave a picture of Matthew Sheppard that I had not known, and had
never heard reported before.
"In a March, 1999 interview with Vanity Fair, Judy Shepard discussed that while Matthew was on
vacation in Morocco during his senior year in high school, a gang there raped him. "He was never
the same after Morocco, " his mother said. "And neither were we. We were always worried about
his physical safety and his mental state. It seemed to him it was taking forever to feel safe."
When Matthew was a senior in high school, three years before his death, he was raped by a gang
when on vacation in Morocco! The "gang" word means not just one rapist, but many. It also means
men. Matt was raped by a group of men. That is quite a traumatic occurrence to not be mentioned
in the short life of the young man. It also leads to questions whether Matthew was dealing with issues
that might have led to his homosexual behavior, his depression, his reported drug use. It also begs the
question: if Matthew had received treatment that led to his leaving the gay lifestyle and self destructive
behavior, and then he had been robbed and murdered by Henderson and McKinney, would anyone
remember his name? Would the press have even covered it outside of Wyoming?
But what concern is that of the advocates of homosexuality? When Matthew was beaten and tied to
a split rail fence and left to die, he ceased being a person, he became a symbol. Soon Hollywood and
leftists were celebrating his gayness and producing "The Laramie Project" and promoting protection of
gays from the cruelties of homophobic tormentors. Schools use the play to combat "bigotry" and
"homophobia," while they promote the acceptance of homosexuality as a lifestyle. That persists today
even though eleven years after the murder things weren't quite what they appeared to have been.
From the aim.org web site December 22, 2004 titled "Exploiting Matthew Shepard"
You know there must be something happening when the New York Times praises ABC News for
running "an intellectually brave episode" of the "20/20" show that has angered the homosexual
lobby. That means the Times found it convincing, and so did we. In the November 27 show, "20/20"
uncovered the truth about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, widely depicted as a hate crime
because he was a homosexual. Almost everything we were told about this murder at the time by
ABC, the Times and every other major news organization was false.
We were told that this University of Wyoming student was murdered simply because he was a
homosexual. The truth is that he was the victim of a robbery gone bad by two drug addicts. What's
more, Shepard was also a heavy drug user who was HIV-positive. Not only were the perpetrators
of this brutal crime not "homophobes," but one of them knew Shepherd and was allegedly
bisexual. The real story of the Matthew Shepard case, as the prosecutor says on "20/20," concerns
the dangers of methamphetamine. The two killers and Shepard were big meth users.
Why were the stories about this crime so wrong? The gay rights movement wanted to depict
Shepard as an innocent victim of a homophobic society. This played into their demands for
legislation to curb so-called "hate crimes." One of the perpetrators used that to his advantage,
arguing when he went on trial that he went into a panic when Shepard tried to proposition him at a
bar. His girlfriend made the same claim in the media, including on "20/20." But now they say it
was all a ruse, designed to get him a reduced sentence by suggesting that he wasn't in control of his
faculties when the murder occurred. The ploy failed. Both of those involved in the murder got life in
prison.
ABC and correspondent Elizabeth Vargas are now under heavy fire from the homosexual lobby for
dispelling the Shepard myth. But ABC and Vargas ALSO show Shepard to be a very depressed
young man, on the verge of suicide, because of his homosexual lifestyle. The "gay rights" lobby
doesn't want to face up to that. Matthew wasn't "gay" and "proud." He was profoundly troubled.
And that is why we probably won't see ABC or the rest of the media take this story one step further
into the issue of how homosexuals can leave their dangerous lifestyle. Dr. Warren Throckmorton of
Grove City College has produced a videotape, "I Do Exist!," on the phenomenon of the ex-
homosexuals. The video explains how people fall into the homosexual lifestyle and how they can get
out of it. If this kind of message had been available to Matthew Shepard, he might be alive today.
Instead, as "20/20," explains, he was involved in a lifestyle that took him to seedy bars and wild
parties, running into people like Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, who would eventually kill
him. Their motive, however, was not hatred of homosexuals but money. They wanted Shepard's
money to buy more meth. In that regard, Rep. Mark Souder recently presided over a House narcotics
subcommittee hearing into the growing national problem of methamphetamine abuse. That's where
the media should devote some more of their attention.
The article paints quite a different picture than is still promoted by the progressives who would use
Matthew as a symbol and a tool to promote their agenda. Matthew, a tormented young man, raped by
multiple rapists in high school, dealing with issues that only he knew and possibly, no probably, was
unable to deal with himself, met his end at the hands of two evil men who would have had a different
victim if Matthew hadn't been there. He isn't a symbol. He was a troubled young man who met a brutal
end alone on a cold Wyoming night.
Quick, a pop quiz. Who was Jesse Dirkhising? Don't know? Well, it wasn't going to count on this
semester anyway. This is what happens when the press doesn't see the story fitting in with their
agenda and liberals don't see the story as fitting their dogma. The following doesn't fit in with the
keepers of the homophobia label. Jesse doesn't get to be a Christ like figure. There will be no plays
about Jesse, no movies on HBO, no one putting on his story at the local high school drama
department. From the ABC News April 13, 2003:
A 13-year-old boy in Arkansas dies after a horrific sexual crime but much of the national media
ignore the story. Conservative columnists and other critics think they know why — because the boy's
accused killers are gay.
"[The media] doesn't want the public to think about homosexuality and pedophilia and torture and
the murder of children," says Don Feder, a conservative columnist at the Boston Herald. The boy,
Jesse Dirkhising, was bound, drugged, tortured and raped for five hours before he died in 1999.
Last month, a jury convicted Joshua Brown, 23, of rape and murder. Brown was sentenced to life
in prison without parole, the maximum sentence. Brown's lover, Davis Carpenter, 39, goes on trial
next month.
But the case received little attention in the national media. Critics say that is evidence of pro-gay
bias, noting that news organizations gave extensive coverage to the 1998 murder of Matthew
Shepard, a young gay man who was hung on a fence post by two straight men and left to die.
Protesters outside Brown's trial in Bentonville, Ark. held signs that read, "Pro-Gay Media Shame."
Conservative and anti-gay groups have made the same argument for months on their Web sites and
in their publications.
Their argument was given more weight when it was embraced by one of the country's most
provocative gay writers, Andrew Sullivan, in The New Republic.
Sullivan compared media coverage of the two cases, and found what he described as a
"staggering" discrepancy. He concluded that the media "hyped" the Shepard case to build support for
the inclusion of gays under federal hate crime protection, and ignored the Dirkhising case for fear of
feeding anti-gay prejudice.
"I think there is clearly evidence that many in the media decided we're not going to go there
because we know it will feed anti-gay prejudice," Sullivan told ABCNEWS.
Editors at the television networks and major newspapers have responded that they covered the
Shepard crime because it was part of a national issue — hate crime legislation.
"For a crime story or a murder story, even a horrific and sad one like [that of] Jesse Dirkhising,
to be covered by the national press, I think there has to be an issue of larger social significance
attached to it," says Martha Moore, a media reporter for USA Today.
Editors say that while it may seem cold, countless rapes and murders — gay and straight —
regularly go unreported in the national media because they are not part of a larger issue.
Editors also say that the horrific details of the Dirkhising case made it hard to report.
According to an account Brown gave police after his arrest, he and Carpenter had tied
Dirkhising to a bed with duct tape as part of a "game." Then they gave Dirkhising an enema of
urine that they had dosed with amitriptyline, an antidepressant and a sedative.
Jesse was gagged with a pair of dirty underwear while Brown raped the boy and Carpenter
directed the scene, according to Brown's account. The boy died of suffocation, which Brown said
was an accident.
Brown told police he was acting on instructions that Carpenter wrote and drew for him on a pad
of paper. Prosecutors plan to use the notes and diagrams as evidence at Carpenter's trial.
Another charge prosecutors intend to make at Carpenter's trial is that the men were planning on
other rapes. Prosecutors intend to to submit handwritten short stories that police found in
Carpenter's apartment, which were explicit writings envisioning future rapes and tortures,
mentioning one local girl by name.
Jesse isn't a symbol either, any more than Matthew is. He was a victim of evil men just like
Matthew. But the question remains, both victims were murdered. One was murdered either for
money, or because he was gay and had money. The other was ruthlessly raped, tortured, and
murdered. The killers of Matthew said it was an accident. The killers of Jesse said it was an accident.
Which killers should be prosecuted under hate crimes laws and which shouldn't?
Homophobia. It is the first of the liberal deadly sins. The label seeks to protect a troubled practice
that is corrosive on the practitioner, destroys the fabric of society, degrades the family and the
individual, and brings misery to the person trapped in the lifestyle. It is a mental disorder. The label
promotes the suppression of Christianity and morality, therapy for those who are suffering, any
objections to the practice, and demands the rigid adherence to the lie of liberal tolerance.
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