"You robbed me of something very precious and I will never forgive you for that. Mr. McKinney, I give you life in the memory of one who no longer lives. May you have a long life and may you thank Matthew every day for it." Those were the words said by Dennis Shepard at the sentencing of Aaron McKinney, one of the men who tortured, robbed, and murdered his son Matthew Shepard. He was given a life sentence. States must inflict a harsher punishment for people who commit gay violence crimes because over the years hate crimes based on sexual orientation have become the third highest category reported. Many people claim that the violence happenes not because of sexual orientation, but because it is just an act to be committed. According to the Human Rights Campaign, crimes against homosexual people resulted in four deaths in 1998 alone. James Ward, a thirty-seven year old male from Arkansas, was stabbed to death in his own home by eighteen year old Jeremy Legit. Legit claimed that Ward made two sexual advances toward him. He was sentenced to twenty years. In Honolulu, a man was beaten to death by a group of teenagers in a public shower because they believed he was gay. They were sentenced to five years in custody. In September, a transgender female was stabbed repeatedly with a broken beer bottle and set on fire. Christopher Lopez and Christopher Chavez spent five months in jail before all charges were dropped by the Fresno Police Department. On October 12, 1998 Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student at the University of Wyoming was beaten, tormented, tied to a fence, and left to die in freezing temperatures. The two men were sentenced to life in jail, only after the media had covered the trial and the whole world knew of the att... ... middle of paper ... ...on's attorneys filed another appeal to the state high court in 2001. The case has been portrayed in a move, "Boys Don't Cry", in which the lead actress, played by Hilary Swank won an Oscar in 1999. Because the crime rates have dropped, crimes against homosexuals have rose in the past years. Laws in several states do not cover crimes related to homosexuals. There are four states in America that have no safe haven for homosexuals, states must establish crueler punishment for men and women that commit heinous hate crimes based on sexual orientation In a statement released by Judy Shepard, Matthews mother, she says: Matt is no longer with us today because the men who killed him learned to hate. Somehow and somewhere they received the message that the lives of gay people are not as worthy of respect, dignity and honor as the lives of other people (HRC 3).
Most of the time when hate crime happen in the society, everyone got feared and questions the environment they living in. Same happened in the case of Matthew Shepard's, when everyone in Laramie got the news of the inhuman behavior incident happened with him. Due to Matthews nice and cheerful personality it was hard for his family and friends to believe on that news. This mishap left a feeling of distrust and insecurity in the society which can be conducted by the way many people used the phrase, “Live and Let Live”in the project. If we interpret this phrase
Shepard was a homosexual man, and his murder was labeled as a hate crime, a murder which, in the late 90's, dominated the airwaves: “Matthew Shepard” was the name at the tip of everyone's tongue, but what made his murder special? JoAnn Wypilewski points out in her essay “A Boy's Life” that, “Gay men are killed horribly everywhere in this country, more than thirty just since Shepard – one of them in Richmond, Virginia, beheaded” (609). When so many men are killed in a similar context why do we specifically care about Matthew Shepard – or why don't we? Searching simply the name “Matthew Shepard” in the Google database yields thousands of results in the form of articles, news periodicals, and videos. The media exposure of the Matthew Shepard case is overwhelming. The overload of information can leave us clueless. As college students of the twenty-teens who are fifteen years removed from the incident how do we care about Matthew Shepard?
A hate crime is defined as “a crime motivated by racial, sexual, or other prejudice, typically one involving violence” (Oxford Dictionaries). Matthew Shepard’s death caused great disorder in Laramie despite the fact that it was originally an unknown town. In a sense, Laramie itself has changed due to the media attention of this event. Hate was originally “not a Laramie value” (Kaufman 15), but after this hate crime, the public has great sympathy for Matthew Shepard and distrust towards Laramie’s people. Even with all the support as well as the parade for Shepard, it is quite disappointing that there weren’t any regulations or protection offered to homosexuals, bisexuals, or transgender, after this crime. The media only showcased the event and
The murder of Matthew Shepard who was gay and only had 21 year’s old, happened in the state of Wyoming in 1999. Just before Matthew was murdered, he was in a bar and ask Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney for a ride home. These two agreed to take Matthew home, however they had different intentions. “Subsequently, Shepard was robbed, severely beaten, and tied to a fence in a remote area” (Burns & McNamara, 2008, p. 182). Unfortunately, the attack on Matthew left him with a fractured skull and severe brain damage. This cause death of Shepard four days after the attack occur. There was no doubt this was a hate crime that Aaron and Russel committed against Shepard just because of his homosexual orientation.
Hate crime legislation is needed. Crimes are on the upswing, becoming more public, more violent, and more acceptable in certain places of society. Without the proposed laws there is little chance that this shall become any less prevalent. As NGLTF, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a well-respected agency who fights for equal rights for homosexuals, stated in their December 1997 article, the exclusion or removal of sexual orientation from hate crimes legislation by law makers is morally indefensible at a time when anti-gay violence is widespread. Failure to address this critical problem sends a dangerous message to law enforcement and the public that anti-gay violence does not exist, or worse, is somehow less reprehensible than violence against other minorities.
...ognized that heterosexual, as well as homosexual individuals engaged oral and anal sex (Gay and Lesbian Rights, 49). For many years it was thought that people who were gay had some sort of mental disorder, and there are still plenty of individuals who believe this. Texas has yet to repeal laws condemning persons of sodomy, as well as three other states (Gay and Lesbian Rights, 49). This is evidence that certain individuals in Texas still believe that sodomy is a crime. Many are set in their ways, that the bible states clearly the stipulation that a man with a woman is the only correct and moral pairing of human beings. With knowledge of the overlying historical ideology of justification for discrimination that Baynton discusses in his essay, the egregiousness of this historical and current oppression of those with ‘abnormal’ sexual preferences becomes even clearer.
In 1969 the federal government put into effect the federal hate crimes acts. The federal hate crimes act protects people of all race, religion, gender, color, ethnicity, and national origin. At the time this law only applied if the victim was engaging in a federally protected activity such as voting or going to school. However, the law did not include hate crimes against gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability status. It was not until 1998 when Matthew Sheppard was brutally attacked and left for death that the act changed. On the evening of October 6, 1998 Matthew Sheppard was at Fireside Lounge a gay friendly bar in Laramie Wyoming where he met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson
The main question of Losing Matt Shepard is – was Matt privileged and thus garnered immense amount of media attention while others who were discriminated against and met with a similar fate did not. After Matt’s death, there was considerable discussion about why was Matt killed in such a manner. Gender role anxiety could have played a part in the murderers’ uncertainty of homosexuals believing in the Laramie “cowboy mentality” and upholding to one’s pride, “macho-ness,” further led them to commit such an act. The residents of Laramie stated that Matt Shepard was “someone we could identify with. Matt was the boy next door. He looked like everybody’s brother and everybody’s neighbor. He looked like he could have been anyone’s son” (Loffreda 252.) Many people could have been confused because the media and society had depicted an image and shown them what homosexuals should look like and Matt looked too “normal” to be gay. In both Loffreda and Faludi, they face strong traditions and the opinions of others that will not change that easily. After Matt Shepard’s death, Matt’s fellow classmates would openly make remarks such as Matt “got what he deserved” or “I hate gays and I’m not changing my opinion” (Loffreda 248). Correspondingly it was difficult for the students of the University of Wyoming to change their opinions about homosexuals after adhering to and following
In 1998, the town was shocked to the event that eventually changed the perception of the people of Laramie as well as the places where the gone far. The brutal, senseless murder of Matthew Shepard, who was gay, threw the quiet, laid-back community into the center of a media feeding-frenzy; broadcast and print journalists from across the country seized on the "hate-crime" aspects of Shepard's death (Lincoln). Wyoming, Laramie became a center of attention of many human rights groups particularly the LGBTQ community. According to the crime description, this was a deadly gay-bashing, in a lonesome, rural place, without much of a visible gay community and a political establishment not only opposed to that community’s needs, but even hostile toward its existence (Marsden). The Laramie Project was created to convey the comments of people in Laramie about the crime and how similar these comments are to the point of view of other people from different states or countries. The attack’s historical impact on Wyoming, and Laramie, and those places’ broader public identities to strangers worldwide, were powerfully shaped by the shocking first impressions of this vividly remembered crime; there are not enough laws about this kind of thing, in Wyoming or anywhere (Marsden). The death of Matthew Shepard encourage the creative and media industry to promote the fight against violence and
It is clear that the murder of Matthew Shepard was a hate-crime against homosexuality and that fact was bound to be a significant factor in the court case. The motives of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson prove that homophobia can lead to nefarious actions and tragedies. Not only do more serious consequences for homophobic actions need to be enforced, but acceptance of homosexuality needs to be enforced socially in order to reduce future tragedy in the LGBTQ
This writer remembers watching Mathew Sheppard’s story unfold on the news one early morning. One could not believe that this young man was treated so inhumane for being gay. Listening as the news reporter reported that Sheppard was beat, and tied to a fence and left to die was unrealistic at the time. Why would anyone treat another human this way is baffling? Even though, Sheppard eventually did pass away from his injuries, he was not forgotten. As a result of his death, the Department of Justice (2015) “create[d] a new federal criminal law which criminalizes [when someone] willfully cause[s] bodily injury” to another human based in their “race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability” (Department
According to a study done by National Youth Association in 2010, 9 out of 10 students in the LGBT community have experienced harassment in school, and over ⅓ of LGBT youth have attempted suicide. More recently, statistics by the Human Rights Campaign (hrc.org) claim that 4 in 10 LGBT youth say that their community is not accepting of LGBT people. In 1998 the Westboro Baptist Church was brought into America’s spotlight when they picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a young man in the LGBT community who had been beaten to death because of his sexuality. Since then, the cruelty of WBC hasn’t ceased to leave many in sickening shock. Bullying, throughout time, has evolved. It’s not just Little Timmy being beaten up for his lunch money anymore. Now, parents are involved. Many religious households raise their children on the beliefs that bullying is A-OK if Little Timmy is a homosexual. Parents ar...
On television, I watched characters such as Marco del Rossi and Paige Michalchuk on the Canadian teen-drama Degrassi. These were the first positive experiences I had of what gay culture was like. Of what I saw, I did not feel like I fit into that lifestyle/group. On the other hand, the movie The Matthew Shepard Story shared the violent side of homosexuality’s history in the retelling of Matthew Shepard’s murder.
We believe that Violence and hate against homosexuality need to diminish severely. Gay bashing, gay bullying, and hate crime is very popular when it comes to hating on homosexual people. LGBT people of all ages die every year, whether caused by suicide, injury or homicide. From 1999-2010, the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention program says that suicide is the 3rd leading cause (4,600 deaths) of death among young people ages 15 to 24. In 2011 there were 1,572 victims that received hate crimes based on sexual orientation. In an article on PBS, written by a woman named Karen Franklin, a description of an interview with a man called Brian states that him and his ...
As seen through the statistics, those who are homosexual are put down. These younger children have been taught to judge and hurt those who are “different”. These older opinions on the matter lead to drastic things such as suicide because those who love the same sex do not follow the “norm”.