The TRUE story of Matthew Shepard

Well, it certainly wasn't a love crime.

It’s really important to *somebody* that Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder wasn’t a hate crime.

They’ve been pushing this narrative for 25 years.

With the help of Elizabeth Vargas, media whore.

Candace Owens has been pushing this narrative, too.

When it comes to this sort of thing, I have to wonder what the motivation is. If it's purely from a transparency point of view I wouldn't say so much, but when you dig a bit deeper, the majority of people who want to desperately prove Shepard's death had nothing to do with homophobia are those who want to act like homophobia doesn't exist. The same people who say things like "homophobia isn't real, no one is afraid of gays!!!" They usually dislike the fact it's held up as an example of intolerance and that it was instrumental in introducing hate crime legislation.

What we do know for sure is that a 21 year old was brutally beaten, tortured and tied to a fence where he was left to die. It takes a particularly shitty person to want to drag all that back up for the family to question the motivation behind it.

um, except it was a hate crime bc he was gay

More GQP disinformation.

And the comments under the video are from Trump ball-lickers claiming the integrity of journalism was hurt because of this false narrative. FOH

There was NOTHING in that video that made me think this WASN'T a hate crime just because he sold them drugs and they were social. These people are TRUKY naive.

And NO you cannot take off your FUCKING shoes in my house

TRULY (my bad, typing from my phone)

This is from the Free Press, which is run by Bari Weiss, a Democrat lesbian, not right wing propaganda.

Why is it so important to everyone here at Datalounge that this crime was motivated by animus toward gays? If a gay guy had killed another gay guy, would you still call it a “hate crime”?

Bari Weiss is a complete and total fucknut media whore opinion writer. Some loon thinks that her links are worth posting here once in a while, and always end up being eviscerated.

I just read a few of the articles on The Free Press and it appears to be wingnuts poorly masquerading as Democrats. Nice try, Vlad.

[quote] This is from the Free Press, which is run by Bari Weiss, a Democrat lesbian, not right wing propaganda.

Bari is ultra conservative, my dear. She’s a lunatic.

Bari Weiss is a typical edgelord contrarian libertarian grifter. And she's bisexual in practice with at least one ex-husband in her past.

Bari is not a lesbian.

[quote] Why is it so important to everyone here at Datalounge that this crime was motivated by animus toward gays?

Why is it so important to you to display this crime as not motivated by animus towards gays?

We have to remember that all idiots aren't libertarian, but all libertarians are idiots.

Pardon me if I am less than swayed by opinions that Matthew Shepard was not murdered in a hate crime when they come from someone who believes that saying you don’t like bagels is antisemitism and that her college middle eastern studies professor talked about Israel and Palestine too much.

I am skeptical of everything the MSM reports. I think it very important that the true story be told from the get go, which wasn't the case with Matthew's murder. It is even more important that the record be rectified when the public is told lies to further an agenda or ideology, which was certainly the case with Matthew's murder.

The state of journalism in the US is a travesty. Most frightening is that we have a supposedly educated class which believes everything it is told.

[quote]Why is it so important to everyone here at Datalounge that this crime was motivated by animus toward gays?

It is important to respect the facts of this case. There is plenty of evidence already out there that this was a hate crime. Hun, this site has been around so long that we likely discussed Matthew Shepard's death when it first happened. We're not taking any revisionist history here.

[quote]If a gay guy had killed another gay guy, would you still call it a “hate crime”?

You're an obvious troll. It's 2024. Most people on this board know what a Hate Crime is defined as, in legal terms. We know what a hate crime is and is not. Do you know how to use Google? Does your scenario met this criteria?

Fuck you R18. You’ve sound like someone who has an agenda of their own, like Bari, or maybe just a vodka-pickled brain, like Elizabeth.

The last time this came up, I decided to actually read The Book of Matt. It makes a very convincing case that this was a murder over drugs, and that Matt knew his killers, and that all were addicts, and that Laramie had a very serious issue with corruption as well as drugs. The book has flaws--it's repetitive and overlong--but the amount of investigations and interviews and sheer ballsiness that went into writing it was very impressive. Nobody likes people who pick apart decided-on facts, unfortunately.

[quote] I think it very important that the true story be told from the get go,

First impressions are often incorrect. When it comes to hate crimes, there are always those (usually on the side of the person committing the hate crime) saying that it is not a hate crime, trying to, in fact, establish "the true story" as though that truth might change once the full and complete investigation and accounting is complete.

R21, you said a lot without actually saying anything, a critique of the writing style aside.

What specific facts from the book made you believe that the police and ALL the other media in America got this wrong and one guy had it right?

This is and example of OP’s intelligence from the marriage equality thread:

[quote]Honestly, I care more about fiscal issues than I care about my right to marry the same sex. There’s nobody I’m in love with right now, and the people I did fall in love with never reciprocated my feelings.

[quote] Reversing gay marriage won’t affect my life, but higher taxes will.

[quote]I will not vote for Trump, but it is stupid for Biden to talk about raising capital gains taxes right now. He will not get my vote either. He doesn’t deserve it. The Democrats deserve to lose to Trump because they did not hold any primary to see if voters wanted to pick a different candidate than Biden.

Setting aside the unbelievable self-centered nature of OP, I can’t help but point out the obvious LIE he tells about the election.

The Democrats had primaries, people voted, and candidates selected just like in every primary that has ever happened in the U.S.

OP is so concerned in getting the nuance correct regarding an almost two decade old murder but gaslights about this year’s primary which isn’t even officially over.

He was tortured and left to die.

It was a hate crime.

I cannot wait until Bari Weiss's marriage to the Hearst heiress goes kablooey, as it inevitably will; it'll be world-historical lesbian drama.

[quote]It makes a very convincing case that this was a murder over drugs, and that Matt knew his killers, and that all were addicts

And somehow this means that it cannot have been a hate crime?

I still think it was a hate crime because they decided to beat him to death because he was gay.

R24 caught a troll!

"The guy who killed him was actually a bisexual drug addict who wanted more drugs. It wasn’t a hate crime"

Whew, I feel so much better now.

Oh, and Bari Weiss is a right-wing shill

Saying a drug user can’t be the victim of a hate crime is right up there with saying it can’t be rape if it occurred on a date.

R32 Yes but was is it hate hate?

Elderlez, nobody is saying that.

Anonymous letters, meth addicts, hearsay

You know what even if the motive is somewhat more complex and fueled by robbery and drugs I dont give a fuck. There is no doubt in my mind that small town treated Matthew like a 2nd class citizen and put him through hell. I don’t give a fuck if they received a harsher sentence. Fuck em.

R16, because if we are not honest, we will not be taken seriously. THIS is why people distrust activists and mainstream media because of lies like this.

People mistrust the mainstream media because there are many people in this world who stand to benefit when they can convince portions of the public that things aren’t what they seem they are.

If you can convince them that the experts are lying to them then you can convince them that your lies are possibly true.

OP probably has never heard of these clinical studies where "heterosexual men ranging on a spectrum going from not homophobic at all to very homophobic" were recruited under the guise of testing a new ED pill (I would suppose), where a flimsy piece of tissue would be attached to their genitalia and where they would then be shown a video where some frames had explicit homosexual content long enough for the lizard brain to register but not long enough for you to consciously realize that they're there. Subliminally.

Anyhow, this study (or maybe these studies) showed that the more homophobic the men would self-describe, the more they would go on to break those damned flimsy pieces of cellulose. We know correlation is not causation but still...

Rose, if I have to draw a picture of what was going on here, IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE!

[quote]It’s really important to *somebody* that Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder wasn’t a hate crime.

And that slavery is nothing more than "Back Jobs."

Keep chewing OP

It's just like the pulse shooting. People are desperate to.hold.on to their hate toward gays so they can't allow that hate like theirs is responsible for murder.

R42, Omar Mateen’s wife claims he didn’t even know it was a gay nightclub.

[quote] Omar Mateen’s wife claims he didn’t even know it was a gay nightclub.

Because his wife would know what gay clubs Omar knew about and didn't know about. Think she might have some motive to lie?

[quote]OP probably has never heard of these clinical studies where "heterosexual men ranging on a spectrum going from not homophobic at all to very homophobic" were recruited under the guise of testing a new ED pill

So all homophobia is the fault of men who are attracted to men and the only way to get rid of homophobia is to get rid of them all, got it.

That being said, the only way to end racism is to get rid of other races. Got it.

Thanks for letting us know that to prevent people from being victimized the best thjng to do is blame and then eventually get rid of he victim.

Straight = good. Gay = evil. Got it.

It's probably only going to get worse, too. I came across the following tweets from Joel Berry this morning:

[quote]I think people are starting to understand why homosexuality used to be outlawed

[quote]The LGBTQ movement went from "we just want to be left alone and have equal rights" to an aggressive public fetish campaign aimed at children within about 2 seconds, which is starting to make many people believe that's what it always was

He's the Managing Editor of Babylon Bee - which I know Elon Musk endorses - so not some random anonymous troll. Now I'm sure many would just say "who cares what he thinks?" but, for me, it's about more prominent people feeling emboldened to say these sorts of things openly. And most of the replies seem to agree with him. They have that disingenuous "I used to support gays until all this!" running through them where they deliberately conflate nudity at Pride events with how all gay people act.

R3 4 But they kinda are saying that.

For some reason, they feel that just because they KNEW each other OR they did drugs together OR the killer was bisexual it couldn't been a hate crime. That's terrible logic.

FUCK, I meant R34, not R3

So we're never getting an edit function like every other existing board, right? GOTCHA

[quote]So we're never getting an edit function like every other existing board, right? GOTCHA

Then stop your fucking whining about it and PROOFREAD motherfucker.

Love ya R47.

R49 ORRRR we could move into the 21st century....and do BOTH. Crazy, right?

Oh, yeah, R43, we should believe whatever comes out of that bitch's mouth, uh hunh. BTW, I have a mosque in mecca I want to sell you.