Defending Matthew
I’m pissed,
So what’s new, you ask? This time I’m not angry at a politician, I’m angry at 20/20. They are planning to air a story on Matt Shepard, where they paint his death as something other than a hate crime. Now if you haven’t seen the Laramie Project, go rent it…right now! For those of you who know the story, yes as awful as it seems, 20/20 reporter Elizabeth Vargas is going to agrue that Aaron McKinny and Russel Henderson were not motivated by homophobia when they tied Matt to a fence beat him into a coma and left him to die in the sub-zero temperatures.
I do not know her evidence (the show will air on Nov. 26th), but I do know her main sources are the killers themselves. McKinny and Henderson have been in prison for the past six years after they both admitted openly to killing Matt. The police have both of them on tape saying they wanted to “roll a faggot.” The constantly used the word faggot to describe Matt and admitted to laughing at how “faggoty” he was when he cried for mercy. However, now it seems they are changing their story so that it looks like Matt was part of an underground methamphetamine ring.
Hopefully you all see how insane this is by now, but I’m going to keep going because I’m livid. These men are killers! They openly admitted to brutally beating a young man to death in what their trial lawyers labeled as a “gay panic” because they were afraid Matt was hitting on them. Matt is dead because he was gay, and now his killers get a chance to rewrite the story. They are alive and well and talking to a journalist about how awful the man they murdered was, but Matt is gone. Because of them, he cannot defend his name. I’m cannot believe we live in a society that allows killers to override the memory of the people they killed.
Since Matt was killed 6 years ago, numerous hate crime laws have been passed that protect all of us from such acts of violence and send a clear message to others like McKinny and Henderson that we will not tolerate gay bashing. This story has the potential to cast doubt on all those protections. Please join me in writing to 20/20 and letting them know that we will not stand by and let them give Matt’s killers the voice to undermine all we have worked for.
Elizabeth Vargas is the reporter on this story. John Stossel (JohnStossel@abcnews.com) is the anchor, and David Sloan is the executive producer. Also, ABC Media Relation’s Alyssa Ziegler’s phone number is (212) 456-162.
So what’s new, you ask? This time I’m not angry at a politician, I’m angry at 20/20. They are planning to air a story on Matt Shepard, where they paint his death as something other than a hate crime. Now if you haven’t seen the Laramie Project, go rent it…right now! For those of you who know the story, yes as awful as it seems, 20/20 reporter Elizabeth Vargas is going to agrue that Aaron McKinny and Russel Henderson were not motivated by homophobia when they tied Matt to a fence beat him into a coma and left him to die in the sub-zero temperatures.
I do not know her evidence (the show will air on Nov. 26th), but I do know her main sources are the killers themselves. McKinny and Henderson have been in prison for the past six years after they both admitted openly to killing Matt. The police have both of them on tape saying they wanted to “roll a faggot.” The constantly used the word faggot to describe Matt and admitted to laughing at how “faggoty” he was when he cried for mercy. However, now it seems they are changing their story so that it looks like Matt was part of an underground methamphetamine ring.
Hopefully you all see how insane this is by now, but I’m going to keep going because I’m livid. These men are killers! They openly admitted to brutally beating a young man to death in what their trial lawyers labeled as a “gay panic” because they were afraid Matt was hitting on them. Matt is dead because he was gay, and now his killers get a chance to rewrite the story. They are alive and well and talking to a journalist about how awful the man they murdered was, but Matt is gone. Because of them, he cannot defend his name. I’m cannot believe we live in a society that allows killers to override the memory of the people they killed.
Since Matt was killed 6 years ago, numerous hate crime laws have been passed that protect all of us from such acts of violence and send a clear message to others like McKinny and Henderson that we will not tolerate gay bashing. This story has the potential to cast doubt on all those protections. Please join me in writing to 20/20 and letting them know that we will not stand by and let them give Matt’s killers the voice to undermine all we have worked for.
Elizabeth Vargas is the reporter on this story. John Stossel (JohnStossel@abcnews.com) is the anchor, and David Sloan is the executive producer. Also, ABC Media Relation’s Alyssa Ziegler’s phone number is (212) 456-162.
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