The Huffington Post published a story with a linked video regarding the Matthew Shepard case. If you recall it was when Matthew Shepard was escorted out of a bar and then brutally murdered in Wyoming in 1998. Initially the reports and evidence characterized the crime as an anti-gay hate crime. Matthew Shepard was killed because he was gay.
However, the story has recently emerged again in a less that popular light which the HuffPo has descended on like flies to feces:
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) has taken the rhetoric to a new level, claiming that those who say Matthew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming for being gay are perpetrating a "hoax" on the American people.
"I also would like to point out that there was a bill — the hate crimes bill that's called the Matthew Shepard bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. This — the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills," said Foxx.
via Virginia Foxx: Story of Matthew Shepard's Murder A "Hoax" (VIDEO).
HuffPo goes on to quote the 1998 story from the NY Times which was indicative of most reporting on the matter – it was a hate crime. However they fail to address the follow-up that Elizabeth Vargas broke on 20/20 a few years later during the sentencing of the two young men who killed Shepard on that awful night.
The story garnered national attention when the attack was characterized as a hate crime. But Shepard's killers, in their first interview since their convictions, tell "20/20's" Elizabeth Vargas that money and drugs motivated their actions that night, not hatred of gays.
via New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder – ABC News.
Foxx does raise a good point that HuffPo must have intentionally left out or "misplaced" in the history of this event. Indeed even Rep. John Lewis mis-remembers of is not up to speed on these little details as quoted in the HuffPo article above.
"(Foxx) should be ashamed," said Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), himself a victim of a hate crime during the struggle for civil rights. "That is unreal, unbelievable. The law enforcement people and almost every reasonable person I know believes he was murdered because he was gay."
Foxx, to be sure, is totally out of line to call this a "hoax" as "an excuse for passing these bills." The incident of Shepard's murder in fact has nothing to do with the content of the law other than to offer emotional appeal at this point. Even if it does evoke this emotional appeal, does it greatly change the content of the bill? Foxx tosses a publicity stunt to get a name out and will polarize the left and right once again with unneded inflammatory rhetoric.
What HuffPo is guilty of is exactly what they rant about regarding Fox News. Does Fox News deserve the pistol whipping HuffPo doles out daily? Absolutely. But when HuffPo publishes this nonsense they deserve equal treatment from their foes. And that's why none of us should consume either source for truth.
No related posts.
There's plenty of evidence that robbery was not the motive.
http://mediamattersaction.org/items/200904290005
Although the sources from media matters are all from 1999. the Vargas report is a compelling one to corroborate the drug money theory.
There's plenty of evidence that robbery was not the motive.
http://mediamattersaction.org/items/200904290005
Although the sources from media matters are all from 1999. the Vargas report is a compelling one to corroborate the drug money theory.