Opinion:
The Propaganda of Matthew Shepard

Liberals go for Jugular Vein

Return to lead story

March 11, 2002

It wasn’t until the lies about Matthew Shepard surfaced, in an attempt to crush anyone who was not a liberal, that I acquired any interest in homosexuality. Before that, I was as unconcerned as anyone even though we conservatives were being challenged, “big time.”

The lies finally got my attention when the New Bedford Standard Times published a story in October 1998 about, The long, sorry history of Christian bigotry continues unabated.

This aroused my curiosity.

It caused me to research the story of Matthew Shepard. Was the Standard Times accurate in its denunciation of Christian leaders in America? After only a few days of research, it was readily apparent that what the New Bedford paper wrote was a tissue of lies. What had happened to Shepard was a grotesque tragedy, but grotesque tragedies happen to many people every day.

This lie refuses to die because the Boston Globe and its parent, the New York Times, work very hard to keep it alive.

It reappeared again in the Living Arts section of the Globe last Thursday. The front page was almost totally about “folk hero” and “hate crime victim,” Matthew Shepard.

In the next-to-last paragraph of the very long story, the author of an empathetic book about Shepard is quoted, “I still don’t feel I understand what happened that night. I don’t think anybody does. I don’t think [the killers] can really explain to themselves what they did with any absolute certainty.”

And in the last paragraph, a man who produced a play and a drama which will appear on Channel 2 was quoted: “[The author] agrees [with the above quote], but believes that appropriating and simplifying tragedy is a necessity. ‘Anything that becomes devoured by the mass culture in which we live suffers from the process,’ he says. ‘At the same time, it encouraged dialogue on a national level. And that is more important.’”

In other words, “Sure it’s propaganda and not reality. But the lie serves my purpose.”

The Truth

The truth about Matthew Shepard is that he went to a bar and left with two psychopaths who were out to rob him. After they robbed and murdered him, leaving him tied to a fence, they returned to town and attacked two other straight men, hitting one of them with a pistol and opening a wound in his head which required 22 stitches to close. They stopped only when one of the others hit one of them with a stick, giving him a hair-line skull fracture.

Although the killing occurred on the 6^th of October, it was not immediately reported by the Boston Globe or its owner, the New York Times.

Meanwhile, on October 8^th, an organization known as “People for the American Way” (a brainstorm of Norman Lear who became rich from the Archie Bunker and The Jeffersons TV shows) published a ten-page attack against the major Christian organizations which had started a “Truth in Love” campaign about many homosexuals who had been successful in changing their lifestyles.

The “Truth in Love” campaign was characterized as “hate” by the Lear organization. Its headline was Religious Right’s ‘Lying About Love’ Campaign. This October 8 report from Lear was immediately given by them to the major media and all of Lear’s allies.

As a result, on October 10^th, both the Boston Globe and the New York Times suddenly began to report this obscure tragedy from Wyoming.    

They reported, as Lear recommended, that the incident was caused by the advertisement which ran across the country earlier in the year which said, We’re standing for the truth that homosexuals can change.

This simple statement by the Christian groups, which was buttressed by the truth that many homosexuals have changed their lives, was said to be “hateful” speech that had brought about a climate which caused those two killers in Wyoming to kill Matthew Shepard. It was because of the “Truth in Love” campaign that Matthew Shepard was murdered.

This was obviously a spin that was preposterous but the mainstream media repeated it over and over and continues to do so until this day.

A few weeks after the murder on October 16, the NY Times reported under the headline, Men Held in Beating Lived on the Fringes, that the two men had had serious problems with the law and with mayhem long before Matthew Shepherd came along. Their entanglement with him was nothing new to their disordered lives.

On the other side, there are many stories of innocent boys who have been grotesquely murdered by homosexuals. We have one right here in Newton. Why isn’t the Boston Globe concerned about preventing the gruesome story about little Jeffrey Curley (right in the Globe’s own backyard) from happening again?

Prosecutors say the killers were sexually obsessed with young Jeffrey. They lured him from his neighborhood with the promise of a new bike. When he resisted, they smothered him with a gasoline-soaked rag. The two men molested and murdered the boy before stuffing his body into a concrete-filled container and dumping it in a Maine river. 

The story of Matthew Shepard is very sad but why is it more tragic than what happened to 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley?

Hate from ‘People for American Way’

The report from P.A.W. started with the statement, “Anti-gay hatred is a staple of Religious Right organizations and figures.”

Then the President of P.A.W.’s foundation was quoted, “If this campaign is about truth or love, then George Orwell must be its honorary chairman.”

As proof, it quoted a mayoral candidate in Springdale, Arkansas, who said, “Homosexuals are perverts….I will do everything I can do to keep them out of Springdale.” Even in Arkansas, he was not elected.

It also cited a “Christian” radio talk-show host in Costa Mesa, California, as saying, “Lesbian love, sodomy are viewed by God as being detestable and abominable. Civil magistrates are to put people to death who practice these things.”

It would be nice to hear from anyone in their right mind who believes that any Christian believes that garbage!!

It’s no wonder that the people at P.A.W. see hate everywhere when they are so obsessed with it themselves?