A friend invited me to go watch the matthew shephard story at his friend’s
\nplace. I did, and it was an okay made for tv film, despite being incredibly
\npreachy, and uncompromisingly biased. It got me thinking on several topics.
\nIt portrays anti-gay violence pretty graphicly for television. It was
\nunabashedly pro-death-penalty until the very end. And, as always, it raised
\nquestions regarding media attention towards this particular incident.<\/p>\n
I’ve never been on the recieving end of any anti-gay violence. I’ve had a
\ncouple of driveby slurs shouted at me. I’ve lost a couple of friends over
\nbeing gay, but only a couple. I’ve been very careful and a little lucky. In
\nthe past year, a friend of a friend was shot leaving a gay bar, another in
\nsimilar circumstances fought back against his assailants and ended up being
\npermanently impaired when, as he was fighting them back, he grabbed onto one of
\nthem as they drove off. Both are alive. A straight man hugged a male friend
\nof his outside a bar in chicago and was severely beaten by cops from that bar.
\nHe too is alive (and suing). A lesbian whom I never knew, who worked at a gay
\nbar in pittsburgh I’ve been to many a time was burned alive in her car. She is
\nnot. <\/p>\n
Anti-gay violence happens. As with any violence, it is wrong. It affects a
\nperson, and a community to know that it could happen to us, for no reason other
\nthan stepping out of a familiar place at the wrong time, or showing affection
\nto a loved one. It didn’t start or end with Matthew Shephard. <\/p>\n
There is no conclusive evidence that the death penalty works as a deterant, but
\nthere is conclusive evidence that many people that have been sentenced to death
\nare innocent. Given the error inherent in the judicial process, I am
\nunambiguously opposed to it. And yet, even in the truly unambiguous case, such
\nas (to the nearest of my knowledge) McKinney, we ought to stop them. Does that
\nmean kill them? It’s not the only way to accomplish the goal. And I think
\nthere are better options.<\/p>\n
There have been a large number of possible victims to select from when it comes
\nto who the media turned into the poster child for anti-gay violence. One
\nwonders why they chose Matthew Shephard. Could it be because he was the
\narchetypal gay man? Physically less than imposing, into theater, pretty, etc.
\nHow about the gay men who fought back? Why did it wait until this particular
\nexample to bring the matter to light?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A friend invited me to go watch the matthew shephard story at his friend’s place. I did, and it was an okay made for tv film, despite being incredibly preachy, and uncompromisingly biased. It got me thinking on several topics. It portrays anti-gay violence pretty graphicly for television. It was unabashedly pro-death-penalty until the very … Continue reading “Matthew Shephard Show”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,15,16,66],"class_list":["post-14","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-commentary","tag-gay","tag-policy","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}