When President Obama signed a federal “hate crimes” law in 2009, many people at the time were calling it The Matthew Shepard Act. There was just one problem: The murder of Matthew Shepard, while horrible and grotesque, wasn’t a hate crime (i.e., crime of bias). It had nothing to do with anti-gay bias until after the fact, when it suited many persons’ interests to make it seem like it did.

Matthew Shepard was a methamphetamine addict – and possibly a small-time meth dealer/courier – who was well-acquainted with his chief killer, Aaron McKinney. “Well-acquainted” meaning that McKinney and Shepard had done meth together more than once, had conducted business as small-time meth dealers/couriers, and yes, had occasionally even had sex with each other.

It’s probable that Shepard didn’t know the other convicted killer: McKinney’s then-recent acquaintance, Russell Henderson. But there’s evidence that Henderson wasn’t homophobic and, on the night of the killing, may have even taken a knock from McKinney as Henderson spoke up for Shepard (against McKinney’s raging, meth-fueled violence). Which, if true, would make Henderson’s *murder* conviction unjust. (He would still deserve a lesser conviction as an accessory.)

Shepard’s killing was most likely a criminal-style ‘debt collection’ by McKinney that went wrong because McKinney was a troubled and cruel person coming off of a multi-day meth binge. So, who fabricated the myth of a hate crime perpetrated on Shepard by two homophobic total strangers, and why? It was a combination of personal and political interests.

• McKinney’s higher-up meth connections wanted to remain hidden, and they would be able to kill McKinney (even in prison) if he squealed on them. Which meant: McKinney would desperately need to avoid naming them. Which meant: McKinney needed to hide his own meth dealings, and therefore, the true nature of his relationship with Shepard.
• As a short, little guy (135 lb) headed for prison in the late 1990s, McKinney also needed to hide his own bisexuality. Which, again, meant: hiding the nature of his relationship with Shepard.
• McKinney, his girlfriend and his lawyers all thought (at the time) that a “gay panic” defense, however unfaithful to reality, would be McKinney’s best shot at acquittal (or reduced charges).
• Certain friends of Shepard may have also wanted to distract people from their, and Shepard’s, meth use and dealings.
• Gay activist groups – ranging from GLAAD and HRC to what is now the Matthew Shepard Foundation – obviously gained benefits, both political and financial, from the myth.
• The media gained a big “story”.
• Once the public/media frenzy started over the (perceived) Shepard hate crime, Bill Clinton got involved in it – at least partly to try to blunt the impact of his Monica Lewinsky scandal. Shepard was attacked on 10/6/1998 and died on 10/12/1998 – roughly around the time Kenneth Starr released his reports and the House of Representatives opened its impeachment inquiry on Clinton.

All this, and more, is cited or documented in The Book of Matt, by Stephen Jiminez. It was published in 2013 and V the K posted on it. I had the book and recently, after talking with liberal friends who were still unaware of the revelations about Shepard, I finally read it.

Despite the horror of its subject, the book is a powerful work of investigative journalism. No such book can get everything right. But this one is readable, gripping, and honest about Jiminez’ own fears and doubts as he slowly comes to understand the falseness of the Shepard “hate crime” myth. The book weaves together a wealth of recollections and coherent detail from dozens of sources who knew Shepard or his dealings, including two of Shepard’s more important boyfriends. The book evaluates the credibility of its sources and, where that may be lacking, provides multiple sources for key claims. (more…)

Michael Sam seems to be suggesting that he’s not playing in the NFL because homophobia.

Michael Sam believes he’s not on a NFL roster because of the fact he’s openly gay — telling TMZ Sports he strongly believes he’s got the talent to play in the league.

Sam was at LAX this morning when he was asked if he thinks NFL teams are shying away from him because of his sexual orientation … or if it has to do with the level of talent he faced after college.

“I think I was the SEC Defensive Player of the Year last year … so I don’t think it had to do with talent.”

“Terry Bean: Charges of sex with a minor cast shadow over gay rights crusader’s accomplishments“

He’s a civil rights crusader! Can’t you puritan tea-baggers get past that silly child rape bugaboo?

Being gay and closeted in the 1960s was painful for Bean.

“I was one of those kids who was full of shame, who was full of fear,” Bean told an audience at a Lesbians and Gays Victory Fund event in 2012. “I tried to commit suicide.”

Are you crying in your sweater over this brave man’s struggle yet?

And the rest of the article tries to paint a picture of a 65 year old millionaire real estate tycoon, with political connections all the way up to and including the Emperor of the United States… who somehow was taken advantage of by his 25 year old meth addict boy toy and tricked… somehow… into raping a 15 year old.

Do you buy that?

Hat Tip: The Lady Michelle

I’ve never played it or heard of it, until I just caught this on Breitbart (via Bruce’s Twitter stream).

I’m Gay and ‘Ass Hunters’ is One of the Funniest Games I’ve Ever Played
by Milo Yiannopoulos

The outrage bell is tolling this week over Ass Hunters, a game in which you play a safari hunter who shoots homosexuals with a shotgun, trying to avoid getting molested by them…The game is as hilariously silly as it sounds.

…the moral police on both sides of the political fence are up in arms…[including] the left, of course, which is screaming blue bloody murder about the supposed homophobic incitements to violence and hatred…

That’s why Google was yesterday forced to remove a mobile version of the game, which has been floating around on the web for years, from its Play Store. All of which leaves me a bit mystified as to what possible harm this ridiculously daft, cartoonish nonsense could possibly to do society.

…both camps have completely missed the joke…It’s actually a very funny satire…

Read the whole thing.

Robert Stacy McCain on the dreadful tedium of having to read every trendy lesbian’s coming out story…

Yeah, you can read the rest of that, if you’re interested, but these stories — “Omigod, I Suddenly Discovered I’m Queer” — are beginning to bore me. Never thought I’d say that. However, after months of researching radical feminism, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only reason girls insist that their parents pay to send them to a “small liberal arts school lacking in a party atmosphere” (Emerson College annual tuition, $37,350) is so they can get a Salon column out of it.

And also marry a lesbian with too many piercings.

Give it a few years, and maybe she’ll write another Salon column — perhaps “Omigod, My Lesbian Wife Dumped Me Because I’m Not Queer Enough for Her” — but my point is that (a) the sapphic bildungsroman is swiftly becoming a journalistic cliché, and (b) it is therefore absurd forJaclyn Archer to say she is oppressed by “institutional heteronormativity” at Eastern Washington University.

So, could this Christmas ad (from Britain) *be* any more “totes adorbs?”

Cute, right? I mean, we’re talking tugging at the heart strings on a Pixar-level “First ten minutes of ‘Up’” levels. So, who could be offended by this ad?

Uptight, bitter, insecure, gay people, apparently, because the ad has been labeled “heterosexist.”

According to Gay Star News the homosexuals of my native land are miffed at what they perceive as the heteronormativity of the ad. As several British tweeters pointed out, penguins are known to be a gay-friendly species.

Because, you know, heterosexual relationships are so unusual in the Animal Kingdom.

Ghey folk must have it pretty good if they’re whining about crap like this.

Apple CEO, Tim Cook, has come out as the first openly gay CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

“Let me be clear: I’m proud to be gay, and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me,” he wrote in a column in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Congratulations, Tim! And it’s great to see you acknowledge, along the way, how America has changed and become gay-positive over the last several decades:

The world has changed so much since I was a kid. America is moving toward marriage equality, and the public figures who have bravely come out have helped change perceptions and made our culture more tolerant…

Part of social progress is understanding that a person is not defined only by one’s sexuality, race, or gender.

Although it’s not so great, Tim, that you still couldn’t stop yourself from playing the Gay Victim card like a drama queen:

Being gay has given me…a window into the challenges that people in other minority groups deal with…

…there are laws on the books in a majority of states that allow employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation. There are many places where landlords can evict tenants for being gay…

I challenge GP’s readers to post in the comments, any examples of U.S. / State “laws on the books” that positively or specifically authorize “employers to fire people based solely on their sexual orientation.”

As for the bit about landlords and tenants: It’s also known as freedom of association, Tim. It’s a good thing because *you* get to have it as well; or at least you *should* get to have it (I am aware that the State of California unfortunately denies everyone that freedom).

All of this got me wondering: How do Americans compare to the rest of the world, in attitudes toward gays/homosexuality? Pew Research has the answer (hat tip, Zero Hedge):

Note how, in the above list of 40 countries for 2013, all of the Islamic or Muslim-majority countries were at 78% disapproval or higher (Egypt at 95%). Compared to 37% or much less, for the U.S. and Western Europe (Spain at 6%). Fascinating.

Annise Parker, who showed her fascist leanings by demanding that clergymen within her fiefdom turn over their sermons for her review, followed up that debacle by claiming her daughter suffered the worst sort of oppression a liberal gay can experience (i.e. hurt feelings and a small degree of inconvenience) when the DMV blatantly discriminated against her driver’s license application because her paperwork cited two moms (which, by the way, is a biological impossibility.)

Daughter needs drivers test. Has all docs, some in MomA name, some MomK, but w/ birth cert showing both. DPS says can only be from 1 mom!-A

As is usually the case when a left-wing activist lesbian reports a hate-crime, it was all bullsheet.

DPS Press Secretary Tom Vinger took issue with Parker’s recollection of events, writing in a statement:

“All individuals applying for their first Texas driver license must provide a variety of documents to prove their identity, Social Security Number, U.S. citizenship or lawful presence status, and Texas residency. In this case, the adult applicant did not initially present sufficient documentation to prove residency. Once she provided the required documentation, she was able to complete the transaction. There is no indication that any delay in the process was related to same-sex marriage.”

This is a fairly accurate impression of what happens when left-wing activist gays put on their oppression goggles.
(more…)

Facebook has been cracking down on people who don’t use their real names on their Facebook accounts because of bullying (or possibly because it interferes with their data gathering). This crackdown has had a disproportionate effect on drag queens.

According to the views expressed on their Twitter and Tumblr, RealNamePolice appears to have an ideological interest in disrupting the accounts of whoever they deem to be a “secular sodomite.” But their greater mission is to report any and all accounts with “fake names,” and drag queens and the broader LGBT community made for an natural starting place. “Their names are simply the easiest to spot… [there are] massive amounts of real name violators… They are the ones with the most obvious fake names and hundreds of friends with fake names.”

From the article, it sounds like the Real Name Police are just busybodies with way too much time on their hands who get off on causing hassle for other people. Any number of Federal Bureaucracies… EPA, FDA, TSA … would probably love to hire such motivated people.

Lisa Ann Coleman was executed in Texas yesterday and the human race is better off because of it. As she went to her appointment with the executioner, she remained defiant and unrepentant.

‘Tell them I finished strong,’ she said.

Her lawyers claim her only crime is being a black lesbian.

‘What she’s really guilty of is being a black lesbian,’ Stickels said.

‘Her sexual orientation played a role in the state choosing to seek the death penalty and in her getting the death penalty.’

Actually, her crime was starving and torturing a 9-year-old boy to death.

But, of course, the left thinks the real victim is Lisa Ann Coleman

A Gay Left Activist group looked at the violence and rioting carried out by Democrat base voters in Fergusom MO and said to themselves, “How can we buck off of this and promote racial divisiveness at the same time?”

In a vile attempt to cash in on the racial unrest in Ferguson and the tragic death of Michael Brown, gay activist company FCKH8.com releases a video (supposedly) featuring black children from Ferguson. Accusing all white people of being racist and clueless, the children, in a superbly slick production, deliver a racist rant only liberals could be okay with. Well, not all liberals. FCKH8.com is hawking t-shirts for $13. And a whopping $5 (allegedly) goes to “charities that are fighting racism.”

Some obviously self-hating gheys in Seattle participated in a “die-in” to show their hatred for the only country in the Middle East where Gay Rights are protected, and their support for a murderous anti-gay Islamist terror regime.

Makes total sense, right?

Remember how Ronald Reagan rounded up all the gay people and put them in concentration camps?

Michael Stipe does, apparently.

“In the early Eighties, as a 22-year-old queer man living during the Reagan-Bush administration, I was afraid to get tested for HIV for fear of quarantine, the threat of internment camps and having my basic civil rights stripped away,” he said.

The deranged paranoia of the gay left is something to behold; as are the politicians who enable it for political gain. And notice how Rolling Stone and the LOGO network act like his paranoia was completely reasonable and justified his choice not to take basic measures to protect his health and the health of others.

Commenter Steve notes this article at Frontpage Mag where in left-wing gay activists cheer that the state of Iowa has reduced the penalty for lying about one’s HIV status in order to deliberately expose sex partners to HIV; a practice I believe is known as “Stealthing.” Of course, this is not enough for the Gay Left. Nothing is ever enough for the gay left. Gay activists demand that “Stealthing” be completely decriminalized because it hurts the feelings of HIV positive people and inhibits their sex lives:

HIV transmission should not be criminalized—ever. HIV criminalization laws do absolutely nothing to prevent the spread of the virus. They stigmatize HIV-positive people, dissuade people from getting tested, and undermine public health goals. They are exceedingly difficult to enforce and based on junk science. They should all be repealed, entirely, immediately.

There may be a Libertarian argument for decriminalizing HIV transmission. After all, everyone is ultimately responsible for one’s health and the choices one makes. But it is so typical of the left to make the argument that it should be decriminalized to spare the feelings and facilitate the sex lives of people who want to spread HIV.

It has been noted previously that Michael Sam has been playing the game of “I should have been drafted a lot sooner, but I was not and some other factor than my ability is obviously the reason for that.” And the lefty media establishment has been eager to fill in the blank by identifying “some other factor” as a word that rhymes with “Momorobia.”

But, there may have been a way in which Michael Sam’s awesome sexuality was a factor on the minds of NFL owners.

“I spoke to one NFL team that suggested it was interested in drafting Sam and had no concerns about him fitting into its locker room or creating any distractions. The team was instead worried what the public perception would be if it drafted and then cut him — and this team had projected Sam as an extremely late pick, likely to be on its roster bubble — even if it made the move solely for football-related reasons.”

A perfectly valid point. The left uses victimhood status as both shield and cudgel against criticism of those whose primary claim to fame is their status as a member of a protected victim group. Criticism of Obama is, de facto, racism. Criticism of Hillary is, de facto, sexism. And criticism of Michael Sam is, de facto, homophobia. And drafting him his inviting trouble from those who care nothing about the game of football except as a vessel for advancing the Party Agenda.

I think the left has officially decided that gays are hot and Jews are not.

A manipulative, lesbian sociopath targeted teachers and fellow students with hate crime allegations just to avoid homework. The woman claimed that her car and locker were vandalized, and that she received death threats after coming out of the closet in high school.

“I had a whole bunch of homework to do and I hadn’t done it. None of it. Hadn’t read anything, hadn’t done the notes. I don’t remember what the assignment was, but it was something that we had a week or two to do and I hadn’t done any of it. So I broke into the locker room and I graffitied my locker. Then the first or second period of the day, they called me out of the office, they said, ‘You can go home if you want to.’ I was like, Sweet. I went home and did my homework.” …

Each time she committed another crime, she says, “It was a little like pressure-release valve.”

“Imagine someone was like, ‘You have zero responsibility now.’”

Gee, now where could she have possibly gotten the message that accusing other people of bigotry absolved here of all responsibility for her actions?

The Gay Left has decided that the ideal choice for Honorary Grand Marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade is convicted traitor Bradley Manning.

Today, the nation’s largest Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride Celebration Committee announced on its website that WikiLeaks whistle-blower traitor (-Ed) Chelsea Manning has been chosen to represent the event as a 2014 Honorary Grand Marshal.

Manning thanked the San Francisco Pride Committee from Fort Leavenworth military prison, declaring, “As a trans* woman, I appreciate the Pride movement’s significant role in bringing together diverse communities and elevating the public profile of the fight for queer rights. I have always enjoyed attending Pride celebrations given the opportunity, and I’m deeply honored to receive this title.”

Obviously, he was the only gay person in the military worth honoring.

Then, I remember this article from The Onion, and Bradley Manning seems perfect: Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years

The powerful Democrat Speaker of the Rhode Island House of Representatives resigned this weekend as Federal Agents and Rhode Island State Police raided his home and office collecting evidence of corruption in state Government.  Gordon Fox was the first openly gay statehouse speaker in the United States and a champion of the cause of same sex marriage; also a crook, apparently. Fox was once hailed by the media as “courageous” for his stance on gay marriage. “Courageous” is a word the media use to describe politicians who agree with the majority opinion of the media and the Democrat left.  As he once described himself, in a weird sort of self-victimizing compliment:

Fox once summed up his unlikely rise to become one of the most powerful figures in Rhode Island government this way: “I’m a biracial gay kid that wasn’t supposed to be speaker.”

Giving people high office and power on the basis of their being “Historic Firsts” has never worked out well, has it?