The lies surrounding the murder of Matthew Shepard
By Michael Coren
Catholic Insight
Issue: January 2011
http://catholicinsight.com/online/polit ... 1082.shtml
I was speaking to a thirteen-year-old friend of the family recently and this innocent, kind, intelligent product of a Catholic family and a Catholic education was telling me excitedly how she enjoyed drama and was overjoyed that at her public school the teachers were putting on a new play, with the students participating. I asked her what the play was about and she replied that she was not entirely sure, but that she was pretty certain it was a murder mystery. I was impressed, in that there is any number of well-written and interesting such plays that the school could have been producing. I asked the little girl the name of the play. "Ah, I think it's called The Laramie Project," she explained.
I did not say anything to her, but I know the play well. It is actually a badly written, one-sided, politically extreme and clumsily proselytizing piece of nonsense about the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998. What made the poor man in question's death apparently worthy of a play was that he was a homosexual and this, of course, meant that the murderers had to be homophobic and that he was obviously a victim of the bigotry we are told so much about.
The problem is that this was not why he was killed at all. In 2004, ABC's 20/20 investigated the case and found that Shepard's homosexuality was irrelevant to the case. "Drugs fuelled Shepard's brutal murder, not homophobia, as is widely believed," 20/20 reported. Aaron Mickinney, who fatally assaulted Shepard, told ABC "he was high on methamphetamine during the attack and it was the drugs that sparked his rage, not Shepard's sexual orientation."
The show's anchor, Elizabeth Vargas, hardly unsympathetic to the gay community and someone who is routinely politically correct, went on to report that it was Shepard's friends who had promoted the idea that Shepard's homosexuality was the key factor in his attack, and that only hours after his body was discovered, and before anyone knew who had beaten him, two of Shepard's closest friends - Walt Boulden and Alex Trout - began spreading the word that he had been attacked because he was gay.
Carl Rerucha, the prosecutor in the case, confirmed Vargas' reporting. "Shepard's friends were calling the county attorney's office," he said. "They were calling the media and indicating that Matthew Shepard was gay, and we do not want the fact that he is gay to go unnoticed." Ben Fritzen, a former police detective and one of the lead investigators on the case, told Vargas it was drugs and money that motivated the attack on Shepard. "Matthew Shepard's sexual preference or sexual orientation certainly was not the motive in the homicide. If it was not Shepard, they would have found another easy target. "What it came down to, really, is drugs and money and two punks that were out looking for it," he told ABC.
So while this unfortunate young man should be remembered and mourned, it is as a victim of violence, ignorance and crime and not as a gay martyr. Tragically, that is not what has happened at all. Shepard's fate was exploited as a reason and an excuse to introduce extremely harsh hate-crime legislation and to give special privilege to gay people that goes beyond the equality of the law that should apply to all people irrespective of their sexuality. Rather than being seen as yet another innocent person murdered in the drug war, Shepard had become a icon of the homosexual movement who died for being gay. Christians in general and Catholics in particular have been singled out for creating an atmosphere where such "homophobia" is encouraged and hatred and murder made more likely.
Now comes the concerted attempt to indoctrinate young children in school who assumed they were learning about drama but instead are being encouraged to embrace extreme sexual politics. The scenario is grotesque but entirely understandable. A respected and liked teacher instructs eager students, who hate nobody but know little about politics, to participate in a play that tells an awful story of a young man slaughtered merely and only because of what he was. Teachers do not lie, playwrights do not lie, history does not lie. The boys and girls are convinced, and then ask their parents how they can be members of a Church that does not accept homosexuality. You, Mum and Dad, are part of the problem. The brainwashing project, brought to you by public education and your tax dollars.
