Sounds Like Just Robbery to Me
ABC news just aired a 20/20 documentary purporting that the murder of Matthew Shepard may not have been an anti-gay hate crime, but just a robbery gone awry. Aaron McKinney, convicted with Russell Henderson of Shepard's murder, claimed he only planned to "beat [Matthew] up and rob him" when he was gripped by an unbiased meth-induced rage.
Aaron McKinney, sealed his own conviction, however, in a taped confession to the Laramie sargeant Rob DeBree, less than three days after the crime, before any line of defense had been established by legal counsel:
What antigay bias? Sounds like just robbery to me.
Thankfully, GLAAD has released a viewer's guide and a take action page to combat the sensationalism of the 20/20 broadcast. Also, Judy and Dennis Shepard (Matthew's parents) have released a statement about the 20/20 program.
- read the full post -
Aaron McKinney, sealed his own conviction, however, in a taped confession to the Laramie sargeant Rob DeBree, less than three days after the crime, before any line of defense had been established by legal counsel:
DeBree: Okay, where do you go after you leave the Fireside [the bar where Matthew Shepard met his killers]?
McKinney: Some kid wanted a ride home.
DeBree: What's he look like?
McKinney: Mmm, like a queer. Such a queer dude.
DeBree: He looks like a queer?
McKinney: Yeah, like a fag, you know?
DeBree: Okay. How did you meet him?
McKinney: He wanted a ride home and I just thought, well, the dude's drunk, let's just take him home.
...
McKinney: We drove out past Walmart. We got over there, and he starts grabbing my leg and grabbing my genitals. I was like, "Look, I'm not a fuckin' faggot. If you touch me again, you're gonna get it." I don't know what the hell he was trying to do, but I beat him up pretty bad. Think I killed him.
...
DeBree: What was the first thing that he said or that he did in the truck that made you hit him?
McKinney: Well, he put his hand on my leg, slid his hand like as if he was going to grab my balls.
What antigay bias? Sounds like just robbery to me.
Thankfully, GLAAD has released a viewer's guide and a take action page to combat the sensationalism of the 20/20 broadcast. Also, Judy and Dennis Shepard (Matthew's parents) have released a statement about the 20/20 program.
posted by Special Touch at
1:18 AM
It's not surprising that a tabloid news service would 'edit' the truth in order to sensationalize and 'resell' a news story. What is surprising, and very disturbing, is that someone felt the need to retell THIS story in such an odd way. This is more than just some lame attempt to spin a story for ratings. Someone decided to revisit an old news story, and rather than sensationalize it, they attempted to redo it. In effect this is untelling the original story. That's not a normal tabloid tactic - something sinister is going on here.
Legally it might not matter why Matt was killed. The perpetrators are guilty of murder either way. But the truth does matter. Matt was killed because of who he was, not just for the contents of his wallet. Retelling the story can't change that anymore than it can undo the crime itself. Murder, any murder, is a heinous crime simply because there in never any remedy. You can't bring back the dead. Matt was robbed. He was robbed of every moment he would ever have, should have had, since he was abducted, beaten, and tied to that fencepost. Nothing can make that right. And to go back and try to deny who he was when he was alive, to deny the life he lived - whether you're happy with it or not - is just another sort of robbery. You can't take back the life he lived either. Nothing could make that right.
By
Anonymous, at
3:56 PM
You're right. The untelling of the Matthew Shepard story -- in essence to "de-gay" the reality of his murder -- is sinister. It is a small glimpse of a single moment in the sinister and persistent suppression of gay and lesbian voices throughout history. Whether by devaluing the intimacy of famous same-sex relationships (ie. Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok), willfully ignoring the issues affecting the gay community (ie. AIDS in the Reagan administration), or, as in this case, denying the persecution of gays altogether (also, Lindner's commentary on gays in the holocaust), the silence surrounding lesbian and gay issues only fosters inequality and shame.
As African American historian, John Henrik Clarke said, "to control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you."
The most tragic irony: by sterilizing the killer's true motivations, 20/20 merely perpetuates the same ignorance, misinformation, and fear that caused Matthew Shepard's murder.
See also Rictor Norton's excellent scholarly essay on The Suppression of Lesbian and Gay History.
By
Special Touch, at
5:45 PM
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