GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

The Book of Matt – and how myth is made (and unmade)

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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. [Read more…]

How telling stories helps us define the meaning of marriage

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Back in February and March when I was re-reading and reading* Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quintet, I recalled the author’s bittersweet Two-Part Invention.  The subtitle helps show my interest in the book:  “The Story of a Marriage.”

At the time, I thought it was the best book on marriage I had ever read.  Later, when I re-read the Odyssey, I realized Homer’s epic still holds that title.  (And perhaps always will.)

Given that I underline in my books and often write notes in the margins and fly-leaves, I thought that by reviewing this book, I might quickly locate a few insights, a few conclusions she has made about that ancient and honorable institution to help me craft a post on gay marriage similar to that Megan McArdle, as Jane Galt, wrote eight years ago, A really, really, really long post about gay marriage that does not, in the end, support one side or the other.

But, L’Engle’s book was about marriage primarily in the sense that she reflects on her life, her relationship with her husband Hugh, farmed in part around his death from cancer in 1986 .  To write movingly about marriage, she deals not in abstractions, but in anecdotes, sharing certain experiences with us as she recalls her feelings and her reflects on her and her beloved’s interactions.   And as I reviewed my notes, I wondered if what has been bothering me so much about the debate on gay marriage is that most people do the opposite of what L’Engle did in this book, that is, they talk mostly in abstractions.

Marriage is about love, say the advocates.  Gay marriage will destroy the institution, say the opponents.  The former hardly discuss how love can sustain a life-long partnership.  The opponents don’t tell us how exactly same-sex unions will undermine the institution.

And their tired cliches sound increasingly empty each time another individual repeats them anew.   What L’Engle teaches us is that to really get at the meaning of marriage, you need do more than recite rehearsed bromides, you need to tell stories.

No wonder that when Homer reunites Odysseus and Penelope after twenty years of separation, he has Athene delay the dawn so that the married couple can both delight in the pleasure of love-making and share each other’s stories. [Read more…]