Matthew Shepard would be 30 this year

[dsc]

On December 1st Matthew Shepard would have turned 30. It is hard to believe that this man would be 30 today.



One has to wonder what his life would be like if he had lived. Would he be the diplomat he had hoped to be? Would he be with a guy and maybe even have adopted a child? Clearly had he been straight he would be alive today. Maybe he would be married with kids. A world with literally infinite possibilities snuffed out.



Many gays and lesbians thought that Matthew Shepard would be our version of the Birmingham bombing. The killing of the four little girls in Birmingham brought in stark relief the choice that moderate whites had infront of them. Either support the butchers of those little girls or support the Civil Rights movement. In droves, white moderates supported the Civil Rights movement. The true, honest, cruelty of the enemies of Civil Rights were brought to bear in that one bombing. From that moment on it was all over but the signing.

Matthew with his boyish features and almost naive sweetness was to be our symbol of the viscious cruelty of the supposedly religious people who hate us. A boy beaten to death by men who pretended to be gay and then tortured him to death. If there ever were an exhibit A for the hatred we face, this was it.

There are very few gays or lesbians who are more than one degree of seperation from having been beaten up as an adult for being gay. In other words, most of us who haven't been beaten up ourselves know a person who has. We all know where we were when we heard about Matthew. We know because we said to ourselves "but for the grace of God". Far from being cynical we were being real when we told the country that Matthew represented us. So why wasn't Matthew our Birmingham bombing.

He wasn't perfect, that's why. First we heard he had AIDS. Then he supposedly harrassed some straight men. Then, Disney, in their first foray into fantasy masquarading as news, told us that "Oh no, it wasn't the fact he was gay it was a drug deal gone bad". So instead of hearing about the real evils of anti gay bigots hiding behind the holiest book ever written we heard about the imaginary sins of Matthew Shepard.

Thus in the wake of now nearly 8 years since his death we have seen no hate crime laws passed. Indeed we elected as President a man who refused to sign a hate crimes bill soley due to the fact it would have included gays and lesbians. The intervening years have seen hate crimes against gays and lesbian increase in every single year to the point that gays and lesbians are now the second most likely victims of hate crimes in the entire country. Only Muslims are more likely to be victims of those crimes.

While gays and lesbians have seen some tremendous gains in the last 8 years we have also seen a major backlash in the wake of the 2004 election. We still haven't shown our enemies to be the evil people they are. I have no idea what our galvanizing moment will be. Mark my words, there will be another Matthew Shepard, likely another several. Eventually society won't make excuses anymore. Eventually the great moderate straight world will see they have two choices either support us or support people willing to murder the lies of Matthew Shepard. Just like after Birmingham there will be no middle ground.

No amount of made up news can change that.

[swimmernsecretsea]

1. Thank you for posting this. It's important that we never forget him.

In past years, I think sometimes we've forgotten about him. I've heard him maligned in print and on newscasts, attempting to destroy his reputation. I recall the day I read that he had died, a grainy color photo of him on the front of my newspaper. I carried it with me as I went to the bank and had the bank transfer a donation to the foundation his mother Judy started for him. How agonizing it must have been to see her child broken and abandoned on a fence. I read that when he was found, the only part of his face that wasn't bloody was underneath his eyes where the tears had washed it away.

[Olney Blue]

2. Thank you, dsc.

Beautiful post. K and R for remembrance and hope for change.

[cboy4]

3. Happy Birthday Bud

:cry:

[dsc]

4. beautiful post

[Catfight]

5. I met his mother Judy, what a tragic ending to a beautiful life. The

heathen's that ended his life too short shall be forgotten, but Matthew will live with us all forever. His life has left a footprint on mine forever.

[1620rock]

7. Has anybody here seen my old friend Mathew...

...I thought I saw him walking over the hill...... :cry:

[Danger Mouse]

6. Also never forget...

The monument that Fred Phelps, minister of hate, wanted to erect in his 'honor.' Evil cuts deep.

[shireen]

8. so sad ...

i will never understand how some human beings are able to inflict such cruel pain on the innocent.
:cry:

[Tyo]

9. Thanks for reminding us dsc.

don't know what else to say, you've pretty much said it for me.

[Rowdyboy]

10. There's a space in the Clinton Library in Little Rock devoted to Matthew..

My memory is pathetic, but I was very deeply moved by a letter from Clinton's representative (I can't remember who he was) to the president describing his talk with the family and the funeral...

[BR_Parkway]

11. Damn. And thank you for posting this.

[ThomCat]

12. So many people don't even remember

who Matthew Shepard was and what happened to him. :(

We can't let people forget. People who think that gay-bashing doesn't still happen need to know that it can and does.

The Melissa Etheridge tribute, Scarecrow, is in regular rotation in my music collection. It's an excellent tribute. Listen if you have it.

[tomreedtoon]

13. Too many gays ignore that they have enemies.

Maybe not my place to say this, since I'm not gay (but don't worry, I'm not getting any other kind of sex either)...but I've known several gay people.

Either they don't understand that they have people who actively hate them, or they blow off that hate as inconsequential. And that usually happens until they get a bigot's fist in their face.

Some people might consider it...well, a "Christian" activity to turn the other cheek and ignore the hatred. I consider it damn foolish. Very basically, in society, if you are different, you have to pay a price for being different. Ask any non-white person. Ask any woman in an Islamic country who dares to learn to read. Or ask me, an adult whose only real difference is that he goes to science fiction conventions and still reads comic books. I get my share of fists, too.

You have to pay that price, no matter why you're different. But I think there is considerable honor in paying that price. It's an act of cowardice in ducking that bill...like gay people staying in the closet out of fear, or abused women accepting abuse without complaint.

[dsc]

14. Forgetting is foolish

but we can't wallow either. We need to live our lives and sometimes damn the consequences.

[tomreedtoon]

15. I say live your life, KNOW the consequences and go from there.

I believe no one should write blank checks on their decisions. If you wish to live a different life, know that you will be in danger for living it. Then you decide to either avoid or take the consequences, but you never "damn" them.

F'rinstance, I could give up being a sci-fi geek, pretend to be normal and have slightly better chances at having sex or being considered for a ten cent an hour raise. But I weighed the price of hypocracy against the potential gain and decided it wasn't worth it. The important point is, I knew the job was dangerous when I took it, Fred. And I went ahead and did it anyway.

[sui generis]

18. so the consequences of being jewish in nazi germany?

No, you either participate in your own fate or you don't, and your life choices do not force other people to act.

What we learn is that we aren't waiting for someone else to write our lines and parts. There will always be people who will murder or bring violence to someone at the slightest excuse. Choosing or not choosing to live your life one way or another will never protect you from those people, if that is your highest value, because their highest value is violence.

And changing your "choices", in a free country, to survive a bunch of gap toothed backwater hillbillies is not freedom. Letting the threat of violence govern your choices is not freedom. I say, learn to protect yourself effectively from violence by whatever means. Be meaner than the bastard that wants to hurt you, and make him rethink his choices. Equilibrium.

[tomreedtoon]

19. That does, of course, mean that YOU must be willing to fight.

To talk about your points a bit - and understand that I appreciate what you're saying...

If you are a Jew in Nazi Germany, you have to decide what is best for you. Leave, hide or fight. There are probably other alternatives, but those three came to mind the quickest. Which one you'd choose depends on your circumstances and your state of mind.

Frankly, hiding seems to me to be the worst choice; it didn't work for Anne Frank, but it undoubtedly worked for a few. Leaving, if possible, seems the smartest. Staying and fighting would require the most deliberation; could you fight? Would your fighting have any effect? In Nazi Germany at its high point it wouldn't - in Nazi Kennebunkport or Nazi Crawford it might.

Your cliched "gap toothed backwater hillbillies" (I'll bet you're watching Adult Swim's "Squidbillies," aren't you?) might actually learn a few life lessons from a gay person living, without hesitation, in their midst. If that person feels he or she is willing and able to take the risk and live with the consequences.

What concerns me are those people who don't know, don't want to know or haven't considered the risks. I might be wrong, but I believe most of the cases of gays being assaulted come from a false presumption of safety. "It's the twenty-first century, of course they're not going to mind me with a rainbow flag on the back of my car."

Now me, I ALWAYS assume people are out to get me. I'm pleasantly surprised when they don't. It's kept me alive. But there are too many people who didn't learn that important lesson early.

[sui generis]

20. You are right - there are two values that impact here

Do you have a total lack of choice, else die, such as Iran, that you have to live with? Is your value to stay alive a bit longer or to die for an idea? I'm not willing to end my gene line for a bigot, but I'm not willing to live in the stasis of fear either.

I most certainly could fight, but I am confident that whatever bet I place on the table is one I'm willing to live with a loss on, or I wouldn't take the risk.

If I had young kids, or an extended family who might be hurt by my vigilante-ish notions, that would temper my hand as well.

But the danger, the real danger is if you take away everything from someone, if they have nothing left to lose, you have a singularly dangerous creation. That is unfortunately why bad public policy in the "middle east" breeds suicide bombers, as distasteful as it is to us westerners to acknowledge that reality.

It's all sad that it happens at all, and the saddest part is that no matter how strong you are against an opponent willing to fight fairly, it is the one who shoots you in your back, or through your kitchen window, who will take you down and make the struggle moot.

Far better then to not make it a struggle of action and retribution, but to change our values on the whole. BTW I've never seen squidbillies. Too busy pontificating here. :P

[cboy4]

16. Unfortunately I'm getting the impression that you're blaming

Matthew Shepard for even a tiny fraction of what happened because he was perhaps nonchalant about his safety.

Let's hope not.

By expressing your theory that "too many gays ignore that they have enemies," aren't you implying Matthew ignored potential danger signs?

If so, I think that's grossly unfair..

None of us know which kinds of precautions he took while out in public, including that horrific, deadly evening in Wyoming.

I personally don't know many gays who "don't understand that they have people who actively hate them."

So I guess the bottom line is I really don't understand your point.

[NMMNG]

17. We never forget that we have enemies

And we don't "wish to live a different life". We wish to live the same life every other American lives and is guaranteed a right to by the Constitution. However some bigoted individuals feel it is their right to deny this to us through the law, through psychological abuse and/or through physical violence.

There shouldn't be a price for being "different" when you're not harming anyone, and it's high time the people who think they're better than everybody else learn that. They may not like the message but too bloody bad.