An attorney for the viciously anti-gay Alliance Defending Freedom yesterday claimed to a roomful of Christians that Matthew Shepard’s murder was not a hate crime.
Yesterday was the first day of the Southern Baptists Convention’s conference, “The Gospel, Homosexuality, and the Future of Marriage,” hosted by the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. During the meeting, attended by about 1200 people, speakers spent much of the day decrying same-sex marriage and the LGBT community.
One speaker, Alliance Defending Freedom‘s Senior Legal Counsel, Erik Stanley, told the audience that Matthew Shepard‘s hate crime murder was actually not a hate crime – despite the fact that the trial facts are clear. It absolutely was a hate crime. Instead, Stanley claimed that “narrative” has now been “debunked.”
“The end game of the homosexual legal agenda is unfettered sexual liberty and the silencing of all dissent,” Stanley proclaimed yesterday. He also pointed to a book he said was published in 1987, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s, which he described as “a playbook for how to advance the homosexual agenda.”
Media Matters’ Carlos Maza, who is reporting from the conference this week, posted a report and video of Stanley’s remarks this morning.
After lamenting the fact that television shows like Modern Family had “normalized homosexual behavior,” Stanley went on to claim that the “narrative” of Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder had been “debunked.”
Denying the story of Matthew Shepard’s murder is a populartactic for conservatives who want to deny that gay people face harassment, discrimination, and violence. It’s also a talking point that’s been thoroughly debunked by expertsfamiliar with Shepard’s murder.
ADF has been at the center of nearly every major media story about the supposed threat LGBT equality poses to religious liberty over the past several months. The group frequently represents business owners and individuals suing for the right to discriminate against LGBT customers, making it Fox News’ go-to source for anti-LGBT legal commentary.
Shepard was savagely attacked and died this month in 1998. Signed into law in 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was named in his memory.
Stanley was a virulent activist against the Matthew Shepard bill months before it passed, and called it “a threat to religious liberty.”
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Image via ADF