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Remembering Matthew Shepard: 18 Years Ago, Gay Man’s Horrific Murder Changed America Forever

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1998 Wyoming Attack Remains A Vivid Symbol Of Anti-LGBT Violence

Eighteen years after the horrific murder of Matthew Shepard, we remember a gentle young man who became a vivid symbol of the hatred and violence visited upon LGBT people.

On the night of Oct. 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard was lured from a gay-friendly hangout in Laramie, Wyoming, by two young men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, who pretended to be gay.

McKinney and Henderson drove Shepard to a remote area, beat him with the butt of a .357 magnum pistol, stole his wallet (including his credit card, which provided a first clue to the police) and his shoes (so that he could not walk back), and tied him to a fence.

About 18 hours later, a mountain biker found the brutalized young man. At first glance, he thought what he saw was a scarecrow. Shepard was only barely alive in the 30-degree weather. The only visible part of his bloody face were the tracks made by his tears.

He was rushed to a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, and put on full life support, but in the early hours of Oct. 12, without regaining consciousness, he expired, with his parents, who had been summoned from their home in Denver, by his side.

As Nikolai Endres observed: “The scarecrow image, a vivid reminder of homosexuals as outcasts, coupled with the Biblical symbol of a crucifixion, caused an outcry across the world. Shepard made the cover of Time magazine and the front page of the New York Times; thousands of candlelight vigils were held across the nation.”

The LGBT community grieved deeply, and our grief was exacerbated by the gloating of homophobes such as the Phelps clan of the Westboro Baptist Church, who picketed Shepard’s funeral with signs alleging “Got hates fags.”

In due course, Henderson and McKinney were convicted of Shepard’s murder. Henderson struck a plea bargain to avoid the death penalty. McKinney was convicted of felony murder after a trial. At the request of Dennis Shepard, he was spared the death penalty and, like Henderson, was sentenced to life in prison.

Matthew Shepard has become a fixture of popular culture, evoked by celebrities and performers in order to signal their position on hate crimes and gay bashings.

Inspired by Shepard’s death, Melissa Etheridge wrote “Scarecrow” on her album Breakdown and dedicated it to Shepard’s memory; Elton John presented a concert in Laramie and played “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” especially for the slain young man; Peter, Paul, and Mary also performed in Wyoming at a concert in Shepard’s memory.

In 2000, Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project performed the play The Laramie Project in Laramie and then across the country; made into an HBO motion picture in 2002, it has since become a staple of university and community theater.

In 2002, NBC broadcast a made-for-television movie, The Matthew Shepard Story, starring Stockard Channing and Sam Waterston.

In 2008, members of the Tectonic Theater Project returned to Laramie to conduct follow-up interviews with residents featured in The Laramie Project. Those interviews were turned into a companion piece, entitled The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, which debuted on Oct. 12, 2009.

Shepard also became a poster boy for hate crimes legislation. As a result, he was defamed by right-wing politicians and conservative religious figures. In the House of Representatives, the execrable North Carolina Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx, in a speech characterized by Keith Olbermann as “the most despicable thing said on the floor of the House in decades,” declared that Shepard was not killed because he was gay and that the story of his death is “really a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these [hate crime] bills.”

Despite the efforts to discredit Shepard, hate crimes legislation finally passed Congress and was signed into law by President Obama on Oct. 28, 2009, eight years after first being introduced. The bill is named the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, after Shepard and an African-American man whose racially motivated murder in 1998 also made national headlines. 

The hate crimes bill was the first federal legislation that specifically recognized the civil rights of LGBT people. Fittingly, the parents of Matthew Shepard, Judy and Dennis Shepard, were present at the signing ceremony.

Upon the passage of the bill, Judy Shepard issued the following statement: “When Dennis and I started calling 10 years ago for federal action to prevent and properly prosecute hate crimes against gay, lesbian and transgendered Americans, we never imagined it would take this long. The legislation went through so many versions and so many votes that we had to constantly keep our hopes in check to keep from getting discouraged. … We are incredibly grateful to Congress and the president for taking this step forward on behalf of hate crime victims and their families, especially given the continuing attacks on people simply for living their lives openly and honestly.”

Central to the success of the legislation was indeed the unstinting efforts of Shepard’s parents and the Matthew Shepard Foundation, which they established in 1999 “to honor Matthew in a manner that was appropriate to his dreams, beliefs and aspirations.” The Foundation “seeks to ‘Replace Hate with Understanding, Compassion & Acceptance’ through its varied educational, outreach and advocacy programs and by continuing to tell Matthew’s story.'”

This video from the Matthew Shepard Foundation tells Matthew’s story: 

In 2012, Lesléa Newman published October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard. A slim but powerful volume of poems, “a historical novel in verse,” October Mourning explores with heartbreaking insight the meaning of a gentle young man’s unspeakable death at the hands of gaybashers.

In 2015, Michele Josue’s highly personal documentary, Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine, was issued to critical acclaim.

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News

Gag Order Breach? Trump Targeted Cohen in Taped Interview Hours Before Contempt Hearing

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19 hours ago

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April 24, 2024

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Hours before his attorneys would mount a defense on Tuesday claiming he had not violated his gag order Donald Trump might have done just that in a 12-minute taped interview that morning, which did not air until later that day. It will be up to Judge Juan Merchan to make that decision, if prosecutors add it to their contempt request.

Prosecutors in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office told Judge Juan Merchan that the ex-president violated the gag order ten times, via posts on his Truth Social platform, and are asking he be held in contempt. While the judge has yet to rule, he did not appear moved by their arguments. At one point, Judge Merchan told Trump’s lead lawyer Todd Blanche he was “losing all credibility” with the court.

And while Judge Merchan directed defense attorneys to provide a detailed timeline surrounding Trump’s Truth Social posts to prove he had not violated the gag order, Trump in an interview with a local television station appeared to have done so.

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The gag order bars Trump from “commenting or causing others to comment on potential witnesses in the case, prospective jurors, court staff, lawyers in the district attorney’s office and the relatives of any counsel or court staffer, as CBS News reported.

“The threat is very real,” Judge Merchan wrote when he expanded the gag order. “Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint. The average observer, must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well. Such concerns will undoubtedly interfere with the fair administration of justice and constitutes a direct attack on the Rule of Law itself.”

Tuesday morning, Trump told ABC Philadelphia’s Action News reporter Walter Perez, “Michael Cohen is a convicted liar. He’s got no credibility whatsoever.”

He repeated that Cohen is a “convicted liar,” and insisted he “was a lawyer for many people, not just me.”

READ MORE: ‘Old and Tired and Mad’: Trump’s Demeanor in Court Detailed by Rachel Maddow

Since Cohen is a witness in Trump’s New York criminal case, Judge Merchan might decide Trump’s remarks during that interview violated the gag order, if prosecutors bring the video to his attention.

Enter attorney George Conway, who has been attending Trump’s New York trial.

Conway reposted a clip of the video, tagged Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, writing: “cc: @ManhattanDA, for your proposed order to show cause why the defendant in 𝘗𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘷. 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 should not spend some quiet time in lockup.”

Trump has been criminally indicted in four separate cases and is facing a total of 88 felony charges, including 34 in this New York criminal trial for alleged falsification of business records to hide payments of “hush money” to an adult film actress and one other woman, in an alleged effort to suppress their stories and protect his 2016 presidential campaign, which experts say is election interference.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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2 days ago

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April 23, 2024

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Republicans in the Tennessee House passed legislation Tuesday afternoon allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in classrooms across the state, thirteen months after a 28-year old shooter slaughtered three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Nashville.

The measure is reportedly not popular statewide, with Democrats, teachers, and parents from the school, Covenant Elementary, largely opposed. The Republican Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, at one point literally shut down debate on the bill by shutting off a Democratic lawmaker’s microphone and then smiling.

Ultimately, Republican Rep. Ryan Williams’s legislation passed the GOP majority House as protestors in the gallery shouted their objections: “Blood on your hands.”

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The legislation bars parents from being informed if their child’s teacher has a gun in the classroom.

State Troopers were called to “prevent people from getting close to the House chambers,” WSMV’s Marissa Sulek reports.

“You’re going to kill kids,” one woman had yelled at Rep. Williams from the gallery on Monday, The Tennessean reports. “You’re going to be responsible for the death of children. Shame on you.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Democratic state Rep. Justin Jones said on social media, “This is what fascism looks like.”

“In recent weeks,” the paper also reports, “parents of school shooting survivors, students and gun-reform advocates have heavily lobbied against the bill, with one Covenant School mom delivering a letter to the House on Monday with more than 5,300 signatures asking lawmakers to kill the bill.”

The bill, which already passed the state Senate, now heads to Republican Governor Bill Lee’s desk. He is expected to sign it into law.

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

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2 days ago

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April 23, 2024

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Four years ago today then-President Donald Trump, on live national television during what would be known as merely the early days and weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, suggested an injection of a household “disinfectant” could cure the deadly coronavirus.

The Biden campaign on Tuesday has already posted five times on social media about Trump’s 2020 remarks, including by saying, “Four years ago today, Dr. Birx reacted in horror as Trump told Americans to inject bleach on national television.”

Less than 24 hours after Trump’s remarks calls to the New York City Poison Control Center more than doubled, including people complaining of Lysol and bleach exposure. Across the country, the CDC reported, calls to state and local poison control centers jumped 20 percent.

“It was a watershed moment, soon to become iconic in the annals of presidential briefings. It arguably changed the course of political history,” Politico reported on the one-year anniversary of Trump’s bleach debacle. “It quickly came to symbolize the chaotic essence of his presidency and his handling of the pandemic.”

How did it happen?

“The Covid task force had met earlier that day — as usual, without Trump — to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads. Trump was briefed by a small group of aides. But it was clear to some aides that he hadn’t processed all the details before he left to speak to the press,” Politico added.

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“’A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway,’ said one former senior Trump White House official. ‘I actually argued that President Trump wouldn’t have the time to absorb it and understand it. But I lost, and it went how it did.'”

The manufacturer of Lysol issued a strong statement saying, “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route),” with “under no circumstance” in bold type.

Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks were part of a much larger crisis during the pandemic: misinformation and disinformation. In 2021, a Cornell University study found the President was the “single largest driver” of COVID misinformation.

What did Trump actually say?

“And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out, in a minute,” Trump said from the podium at the White House press briefing room, as Coronavirus Task Force Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx looked on without speaking up. “Is there a way we can do something like that? By injection, inside, or almost a cleaning, ’cause you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. You’re going to have to use medical doctors, right? But it sounds interesting to me.”

READ MORE: ‘Rally Behind MAGA’: Trump Advocates Courthouse ‘Protests’ Nationwide

Within hours comedian Sarah Cooper, who had a good run mocking Donald Trump, released a video based on his remarks that went viral:

The Biden campaign at least 12 times on the social media platform X has mentioned Trump’s infamous and dangerous remarks about injecting “disinfectant,” although, like many, they have substituted the word “bleach” for “disinfectant.”

Hours after Trump’s remarks, from his personal account, Joe Biden posted this tweet:

Tuesday morning the Biden campaign released this video marking the four-year anniversary of Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks.

See the social media posts and videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Election Interference’ and ‘Corruption’: Experts Explain Trump Prosecution Opening Argument

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