Maybe it’s just me, but I found this story in today’s New York Times both sad and depressing. The lede:
An ABC News report about the murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998, which focused national attention on violence against gays, has ignited indignation among gay rights advocates even before its broadcast tonight.
The program has angered gay rights activists by quoting the local prosecutor and the two convicted killers, all of whom deny that Mr. Shephard’s murder was a hate crime; his homosexuality, they all claim, had nothing to do with the crime.
Mr. McKinney tells the ABC News correspondent Elizabeth Vargas that he was high on methamphetamine when he killed Mr. Shepard in a rage, explaining that his intent was to beat up and rob him.
“Did you kill Matthew Shepard because he was gay?” Ms. Vargas asks. “No, I did not,” Mr. McKinney replies.
Mr. Henderson, who is appealing his sentence, also says on camera that the killing was simply a robbery gone bad. “It was not because me and Aaron had anything against gays,” he says.
Gay activists are angered by the suggestion that Mr. Shepard was not killed because he was gay.
Those leading the charge against the heavily promoted ABC report – including Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation – said the program relied on speculation, two convicted killers and other witnesses lacking credibility who are now changing their stories or making accusations that cannot be proved.
Ms. Garry and other critics also noted that the contentions that robbery and drugs figured into the killing are old news, as is the assertion of the Albany County prosecutor, Cal Rerucha, that Mr. Shepard’s sexual orientation played no role in the killing, as he re-states in the “20/20” interview.
I have no idea whether anti-gay bias was a motive, partial or otherwise, in Mr. Shepard’s murder. Maybe there is compelling evidence that it was, and the ABC program’s suggestions to the contrary are simply wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. Still, there is something disturbing about the agitated effort to hold on to the picture of Mr. Shepard as a victim of bias, to resist the possibility that he may have been a victim just like, rather than different from, all the other victims of violent crime.
Would it really be a defeat, a rejection, of the gay community if Mr. Shepard did not die because he was gay?
UPDATE
JoAnn Wypijewsk has an impressive OpEd on the Shepard case and the ABC program in the today’s Los Angeles Times that is very much worth reading.
Criticizing those like Michael Adams of Lambda Legal Defense who accuses ABC of trying to “de-gay the murder,” she asks us
to rethink the notion that anyone is safer, freer, wiser or more generous in spirit because some murders might be defined as worse than murder, some victims considered special, and some perpetrators punished more harshly
John…. You wonder if “maybe there is compelling evidence” as to whether “anti-gay bias was a motive, partial or otherwise” in Matthew Shepard’s murder.
The difficulty here—and the reason why a segment of the gay community is angry about the ABC report—is that during the trial, it was only the DEFENSE that suggested that anti-gay bias was the motive.
Throughout the trial, the prosecutor (Carl Rerucha) played down the “hate-crime issue” that had focused national attention on the Shepard case, and framed the case as a simple robbery gone bad, which turned into a murder: just as ABC suggests. (It’s also worth noting that this was probably the best strategy for winning the case with a Wyoming jury.)
It was the attorney for McKinney (the same McKinney you quote in your post as emphatically denying the charge of anti-gay bias in killing Shepard) who proposed the “gay panic defense” for his client suggesting that his client reacted “savagely” because (a) he’d had homosexual experiences in the past which “humiliated” him; and (b) suggested that Matthew Shepard brought it on himself by making a sexual advance towards his client, McKinney. (From defense attorney Tangeman’s opening statement: “Shepard reached over and grabbed [McKinney’s] genitals and licked his ear….This humiliated him in front of his friend”.)
The “gay panic defense” acquired quite a vogue in the mid-to-late 90’s….it was also invoked in the Scott Amedure killing (i.e., the “Jenny Jones Show” murder) among many others.
And of course, as someone who believes in treating people “without regard” to race, color, creed, or sexuality….I’m sure that you, John, deplore the “gay panic defense” which is intended to minimize culpability for someone who kills a homosexual because of the threat that homo poses to the killer’s ostensible masculinity.
And in any case….I think when you consider this—i.e., that it was the defense that attempted to BLAME the crime on Matthew Shepard himself, for licking the ear of a straight man, while the prosecution studiously ignored the whole “hate crime” aspect during the trial, and intended to prove first-degree murder (which they did), that you’ll realize what the anger on the part of the gay community is.
McKinney’s own sworn testimony, and the narrative presented by his lawyer, emphasized that he DID kill Matthew Shepard out of anti-gay bias. And the mere fact of that defense was counting on anti-gay bias in the jury….that a Wyoming jury would find the killing understandable, even forgiveable, if it was done after some faggot grabbed his crotch.
But now, six years and a few seasons of “Will and Grace” later, McKinney has announced that “no I did not” kill Matthew Shepard because he was gay?
I think there’s a lot more to the issues of bias in this particular case, John, than your analysis permits. There is more going on here than a minory group with a cult of victimhood.
And I know your revanchist sentiments know no bounds, but you could try to think about anti-gay bias here with a little more depth.
Edna – Apparently I wasn’t clear. I thought I said that of course anti-gay bias exists and that I did not know whether it played was a large, small, or non-existent part of the motivation of Shepard’s murderers. The fact that one of the defendants originally said it did, and the existence of other evidence that it did, does not undermine or refute the point that I made, or attempted to make: that the desperate attempt to refute any suggestion that the murder of a gay man may not have been the result of anti-gay bias is rather sad. The implication, whether intended or not, is that gays should always be recognized as different, that any suggestion that something bad can happen to gay people for reasons other than theirr gayness somehow diminishes them. By contrast, I think human rights and civil rights are best justified by emphasizing that fundamentally all people are alike rather than by emphasizing their differences.
Another example of “fake but accurate”?
Last night, ABC’s 20/20 ran a story re-examining the death of Matthew Shepard. Shepard was gay — he was brutally beaten and eventually killed by his attackers, and the conventional wisdom at the time (1998) was that it was a…
I think it’s Edna’s arguments that aren’t clear. The article brings out the points she makes, that the prosecution didn’t claim anti-gay bias and so forth, but actually bolsters John’s reading of the situation.
McKinney’s defense lawyer claimed gay panic in an attempt to excuse the inexcusable. Lawyers do that kind of thing all the time. Grasping at straws. It’s their job. This was a terrible case to try to use to create anti-hate-crime legislation, and that is what is being brought out now.
That a lawyer claimed gay-panic as the motive of the murder hardly proves that it is true. Rember the twinkie defense? That’s what gay-panic is — a new twinkie defense.
MTV produced a movie about the Sheppard murder. At the end, Sheppard actually speaks to the audience, asking people to work hard to make sure this does not happen again. It’s clear he does not mean murder in general, but anti-gay murder specifically. A segment of the population has been capitalizing on this case for years.
Dead is dead, regardless of motivation. Is one reason for committing murder really more heinous than another? And why does it matter why, unless you plan to use the ‘why’ for purposes of your own?
Ever stop to wonder if Matthew Sheppard cared about ‘why’ he was murdered?
I think a lot of folks have a personal axe to grind, and they have a lot of personal emotion invested in this case. Any challenge to their world-view is a threat to their personal sense of self, and therefore to be fought with all effort, in a mindless, knee-jerk fashion.
Dead is dead, and murder for ANY reason is, to me, justification for excluding the perpetrator from the human race. Let God worry about the ‘why’; that’s His job.
Gosh, you people are all so right.
We shouldn’t get worked up about something like “anti-gay murder”! That kind of complaint is just another example of special interests run amok: instead, we should just work harder to convince people that murder in general is bad.
That’s why, for starters, I think we ought to stop acting like anything particularly special happened to the Jews in the Second World War.
I mean, the Nazis didn’t target only Jews…they also rounded up Gypsies and homosexuals and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
So they weren’t particularly anti-Semitic: in fact, I think they approached murder with some concern for diversity!
So I’m ready to agree with you that “hate crimes” are a silly meaningless designation….the kind of thing dreamed up by greedy grasping minorities, who just want more attention and moral capital!
Just like those homosexuals who capitalized on the Matthew Shepard case. Gosh that made me sick. Just like it me sick when the Jews bellyache about “genocide” and an “extermination campaigns”….like nobody else has ever been murdered in all of history? Get over it! All that bitching is a shandeh fur de goyim!
By all means, let’s agree to stamp out murder….but “hate crimes”? Forget it! That’s like asking for a free lunch on my tax dollar—after you’re dead!
Thor, are you suggesting that when the Nazis killed Jews for being Jews that was worse somehow than when they killed Gypsies for being Gypsies?
Also, you’ve managed to miss the entire point of this post.
Matthew Shepard apparently was NOT the victim of anti-gay bias. He was the victim of a robbery gone bad. There was no special hate in this case. The interesting question is, does that fact make you happy or sad?
Um, Laura, leave Thor alone. You clearly missed the point of MY post.
What made the Shepard case a cause celebre, and what hasn’t changed about the Shepard case, is this: that (regardless of motive) his killers, their defense attorneys, and their sympathetic witnesses thought that it was a clear mitigating factor if Shepard WAS killed for being gay.
“the gay community is angry about this supposed revisionism now.”
What 20/20 did was to state some facts, namely that in the process of beating/robbing Shepard, Aaron McKinney, flew into an uncontrollable rage, not necessarily because Shepard was gay, but because he had preexisting anger problems, combined with the fact that he was strung out on crystal meth, combined with the excitement of the circumstance. McKinney just lost it and beat Shepard to death. To make the point that it was a meth induced raged, and not or not exclusively homophobia, it was noted that on the way home, McKinney encountered another group of thugs, vandalizing neighborhood property, and McKinney accosted and severely beat one of them (with the butt of his pistol, the same way he beat Shepard). McKinney struck the thug so hard that he fractured his skull. Another thug then struck McKinney with a baseball bat. The police then became aware of the ruckus, and discovered the evidence that lead to the discovery of McKinney’s involvement in murdering Shepard.
These facts are neither new nor unknown. The prosecutor was well aware of them in 1998/99, as was the defense.
Some “revisionism” indeed!
What really angers that so-called “gay community” is that anybody might question whether Shepard’s murder really symbolized the brutal gay bashing that has been and is a reality for some gays in this nation. If it turns out that Shepard
So Blunt, if you acknowledge that gay bashing has been and is a reality for some gays in America, why are you adopting a tone of triumphal glee?
Why are you so excited about this? Really. I’m curious.
For the record: what ABC News did was to air McKinney’s NEW story. His old story (as I keep reminding you) was that he was acting on gay-bashing rage. You’re right, none of this was new. And as I said in my first post above, the prosecution never argued that Shepard’s killing was (primarily) a gay-bashing incident….it was the defense that argued it.
I guess folks like you are inclined to believe convicted murderers when they change their story, as long as the new story makes well-meaning gay activists look bad?
“Um, Laura, leave Thor alone.”
On your say-so, Edna? Who are you?
“What made the Shepard case a cause celebre, and what hasn’t changed about the Shepard case, is this: that (regardless of motive) his killers, their defense attorneys, and their sympathetic witnesses thought that it was a clear mitigating factor if Shepard WAS killed for being gay.”
Well, they were wrong, weren’t they? The defense didn’t fly. So where’s your beef?
“And the creepy thin-lipped smile of your parting shot…”
You have a surveillance camera in my home? How the heck do you know what kind of smile I have?
“The fact that these things could be thought of as mitigating factors…” Anything can be thought of. That doesn’t mean that anything that’s dreamed up by a defense lawyer needs to result in an orgy of self-accusation by people who themselves would never hurt a gay person.
Your hypothetical is stupid. No one would mount that defense because it wouldn’t fly, any more than gay panic did, and I don’t think we’ll see that defense anymore.
I think you’re just disappointed that your fellow Americans (it that’s what you are) aren’t the hateful wretches you enjoyed thinking we are.
Edna,
your “well-meaning gay activists” got egg on their faces because they have worked themseves in a frenzy over making Matthew Shepard a super-icon, and a national one at that — the gay martyr, the patron-saint of the innocent victims of homophobia, etc., etc.
In fact, Shepard