*The Last Days of Matthew Shepard: October 13* * My late friend Thomas Allen Heald sadly passed away last May. He was a humorist, editor and writer, and I want to carry on his tradition of sending out one of his works, "The Last Days of Matthew Shepard." I do this to honor both Matthew Shepard and my friend Tom Heald. May they both rest in peace and may we all learn a lasting lesson from the senseless homophobic murder of Matthew Shepard. -Tommy News I invite you to join our Matthew Shepard Pride and Tolerance Group here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MatthewShepardPrideandTolerance/
The Last Days of Matthew Shepard: October 13 Around the world, this day in 1998: On NBC's "Today" show, Elizabeth Birch of the Human Rights Campaign suggests that the Religious Right's $500,000 "Ex-gay" newspaper ad campaign thus summer may have contributed to Matthew Shepard's death: "It's caused a great deal of sadness and grieving and mourning in the gay community. (These kinds of violent acts) never happen in a vacuum. They happen because people's minds have been twisted with cruel stereotypes about gay and lesbian people. And this ad campaign has been pumped out all summer presenting gay and lesbian people as defective, as being less than others, as not fully human. And young Matthew Shepard made one mistake, and that's that he happened to fall into the path of someone that had been fed this rhetoric and it came at him full of rage and hate." --- Both The New York Times editorial board and U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno voice their support for including homosexuality in a national Hate Crimes Law: "Matt Shepard spoke three languages or more. He seemed bright and open and full of promise. We will never know what he would have done in life. But in death, in a nation sickened by the gratuitous thuggery of his murder, he may do much to dispel the stubborn belief in some quarters that homosexuals are not discriminated against. They are. Hatred can kill. The men accused of killing Matthew Shepard will be tried for first-degree murder. But his death makes clear the need for hate crime laws to protect those who survive and punish those who attack others, whether fatally or not, just because of who they are." (NYT) "Current federal law does not permit us to prosecute hate crimes based on an individual's gender, disability or sexual orientation. I urge Congress to pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act this week, which would close the gap in the law." (Reno) --- The giant gay pride rainbow flag in San Francisco's Castro district is lowered to half-staff. --- The University of Wyoming Athletics teams announce they will be honoring Shepard at each game played this Autumn with symbols on their uniforms "in an expression of the ideals of tolerance and diversity." The memorial logo, also being worn on campus in the form of armbands, is a green circle (symbolizing peace) on a yellow background (signifying non-violence). The UW Cowboys football team will wear the markings on their helmets, while the women's Cowgirls programs will wear it as a hair ribbon. --- Anti-gay minister Fred Phelps announces his traveling circus will be demonstrating at Shepard's funeral, and he's demanding the governor's office protect his First Amendment rights to free speech, religion and assembly. Government intervention is necessary, says Phelps, because he's already received seven death threats as spread about his trip to Wyoming. "We're not going to tolerate any violence from these homosexuals. They are the most violent people in the world. Here they are talking about what happened to this poor boy, and they turn around and make death threats against us." Gov. Jim Geringer says he's just determined to keep things peaceful at the Friday event since he legally can't stop the Westboro brigade from a parking lot protest. Although he notes that the Phelps family's presence is "just flat not welcome. What we don't need is a bunch of wing nuts coming in." --- Candlelight vigils are held nationwide in Mr. Shepard's honor. Gay leadership in Los Angeles deems him to be "a martyr to anti-gay hatred." === "The Last Days of Matthew Shepard October 1998" © 2008 Thomas Allen Heald. Sources: CNN, CBS College Sports Network, the US Department of Justice, and Focus on the Family's CitizenLink. * -- Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time. Have a great day, Tommy -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more.
