Matthew Shepard died for our sins

Great Debates
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That isn’t the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen on these boards but it would certainly make it to the final rounds. Please explain to me which of my sins Matthew died for? Matthew didn’t die for anyone’s sins. He died because a couple of people murdered him.

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Let’s get a little perspective here. In this culture we don’t knock walls on homosexuals to kill them.

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Maybe this is just a pet peeve of mine. For some reason it really gets my goat when people type G-d or f-gs. If you’re going to say something then have the guts to type the whole thing out. You think f-gs is less offensive then fags?

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Yeah, nothing has improved for homosexuals since the 1950’s. Right now the teeming millions are coming for homosexual blood. Hmm…that last statement might belong on the “Ask the BDSM Guy” thread.

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So now you’re a biblical scholar?

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If you’re going to post a rant then we have a section called The Pit. Look it up some time.

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I wasn’t complicit in his murders. I’ll check with Matt_MCL, Gobear, and Esprix to see if they were complicit in his murder.

You go, girl.

Marc

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It’s been my experience most Americans are very tolerant of people in the GLBT communities, but get a bit queasy when (justified/unjustified) rants are spewed. Let me turn the tables and ask how you’d feel if this was the OP…

Jesse Dirkhising died for our sins
Oct. 29, 1999 | Jesse Dirkhising, 13, was allegedly raped and suffocated – gagged with his own underwear – by a 22-year-old man while another man, described by police as his “lover,” looked on. None of the reports went national. It appears nobody wants to say anything negative about homosexuals. It’s surprising that the murder of an adult, Shepard, received enormous coverage in the big media and this multiple rape and murder of a child went so widely unreported. The men accused of killing him – Joshua Macave Brown, 22, and Davis Don Carpenter, 38 – were friends of his parents. The boy worked at Carpenter’s hair salon and had been spending weekends there.

It’s a true story and I used it for demonstrative purposes only.

My point is this; there is evil in many individuals…using a Wagner Sprayer to criticize and lambast entire groups (Christians, heteros, etc.) is very counter-productive. People of opposing viewpoints will both ratchet up their rhetoric and never come to terms with one another when either side starts making extremist / militant rants.

Precluding war, Society doesn’t kill…people do. Individuals may from time to time unite together as a group to carry out their will, but don’t make the mistake of blaming entire groups of individuals for the actions of a evil few who hold similar, but more extreme views.
I think it’s high time people tried to get away from this whole “group-think”. We have been balkanizing ourselves in this country to the point where no one is judged as an individual anymore. I admit, there is a valid point to be made in pointing out the “strength in numbers” argument, however, when all people of like mind are banded together in their own seperate groups, individual good, deeds, evils and actions cease to exist.

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Let me first register my stats: I’m a 35-year-old agnostic openly gay male teacher in some order and I feel justified in saying that I don’t have self-loathing baggage, religious or otherwise. That declared, I have to admit that, maddening as the martyrdom of Matthew Shepard by ignorant bar trash was, his martyrdom by the gay community is just as sickening.

BIG DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT IN ANY WAY CONDONE THE KILLING OF MATTHEW SHEPARD OR IN ANY WAY STATE THAT HE DESERVED TO DIE

Matthew Shepard was, by all accounts, a miserable human being in all senses of the term. In addition to suffering from chronic depression he was described by many, including friends, as moody, arrogant, obnoxious, and self-centered. When a straight bartender he liked spurned his advances and cursed him, Matthew responded by charging him with attempted rape (not a rumor, but public record; in his “defense”, he later dropped the charges). He chose the University of Wyoming out of all schools he could get into yet is said to have continually denigrated both town and gown (you all know the type), and his past seems to have leant towards the promiscuous. Best evidence indicates that his murder was a burglary that quickly got fatally out of hand.

Shortly after Matthew’s murder, Billy Jack Gaither, a man from a small city in Alabama, was murdered by a white supremacist who set an ambush for him, bludgeoned him to death, and burned his body on a pyre of tires he had prearranged in the woods. The murder could not have been more premeditated had there been committee meetings and it was undertaken for no reason other than his sexual orientation.

By all accounts, Gaither was an exceptional human being. He left a successful career in Birmingham (a city of about one million with a substantial gay community) to return home to Sylacauga (a provincial outpost with no openly gay presence, though strangely it is the hometown of Jim “Gomer Pyle” Nabors) in order to nurse his elderly and infirm parents. He was active in his church and even those who were stunned to learn after his murder that he was gay still defended him, some even stating that the latter day outing changed their opinions of gays.

Matthew Shepard is the totem pole for everything from pro-hate crime legislation factions to all manner of tolerance organizations, the kid that few liked becoming overnight just short of “a god in Colchester”. Billy Jack Gaither is essentially forgotten by everybody but his friends and family. Matthew Shepard had pouty GAP model good looks, glossy photos, and a background including world travel and prestigious finishing schools; Billy Jack Gaither, for all his virtues, was an overweight and not particularly attractive redneck whose background was small town Baptist.

Coincidence? Or is it that Americans, including gay Americans, are so easily led by the sound-byte and Jennifer Anniston image tabloidization of the media that quality of personality is shoved aside like yesterday’s Whitewater scandal in exchange for waifish lips?

Feel free to disagree.

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The notion that Mary Magdalene and Jesus were lovers is to be found more in the Gnostic gospels than in the New Testament. The Book of Philip, for example, states that Christ
“loved [Mary Magdalene] more than all the disciples, and used to kiss her often on her mouth. The rest of the disciples […]. They said to him “Why do you love her more than all of us?” The Savior answered and said to them,"Why do I not love you like her? When a blind man and one who sees are both together in darkness, they are no different from one another. When the light comes, then he who sees will see the light, and he who is blind will remain in darkness.”
The Gnostics also identify Marlena as the adulteress Jesus saved for stoning and as the woman who anointed him with fine ointment. (Jesus Christ Superstar, incidentally, was heavily influenced by the Gnostics.)

The “love dearer to me than the love of women” passage is a paraphrase of Jesus’s ancestor David’s comment about Jonathan which is also often used to suggest uranism. Personally, I don’t think in either case it implies more than a deep platonic love. If David had said “the ass of Jonathan is sweeter than that of any broad, and I ain’t talkin’ donkeys”, it would be more convincing.

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The Nazi persecution of gays, while brutal (moreso on the individual level than their persecution of Jews), involved thousands, not millions, of victims. The highest estimate I’ve ever read of those rounded up under Paragraph 175 was about 40,000, and the more accurate number is probably under half that.
Certainly this isn’t comforting to those who were among the 40,000, but it’s not on par with Jews. (An interesting study: if you look at the marriage records for Germany in the mid-late thirties, you’ll notice lots and lots and lots of middle aged and elderly men suddenly getting married for the first time.)
Am I the only person to notice that there weren’t nearly as many gay men in this country before Jessica Hahn posed naked?

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Actually, Marc, I think typing “G-d” has something to do with Orthodox Jewish beliefs, or something-but I can’t for the life of me remember the exact reason. Somebody help me out here!

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Hebrew has no vowels (well, the classical version; the modern version does), besides which to actually say the name of God, or even to write it, is blasphemy, so G_d is done from respect and or devotion.

(It was revealed in one of the lost Gospels that G_d’s sensitivity over his name was probably based on the fact that his parents named him Billy Earl Yahweh, Jr.; when asked for commentary, G_d gave the reporter leprosy, so who knows?)

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" Best evidence indicates that his murder was a burglary that quickly got fatally out of hand."

Minor quibble- it wasn’t a burglary, but rather a robbery. Shepard was lured ot of a bar for the purpose of robbery.

My own theory: Methamphetamine abuse contributed greatly to the violence of the crime. Are you aware of why the perpetrators were nailed so rapidly? They were still out looking for trouble in the wee small hours the next morning (before Shepard was found tied to the fence). They pistol-whipped a Hispanic male whom they had seen slashing tires, and were arrested. I believe (though I’m no longer certain) they were still in custody when Shepard was found. A policeman recalled seeing Shepard’s credit card on their dashboard, and the rest is history.

I believe the perps were so violence-prone because they were serious methamphetamine abusers.

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Hooray, the woodwork dwellers cometh!

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Thank you for your excellent demonstration of the type of misguided ignorance I have rededicated myself to fighting. The fact that this story is an implied indictment of homosexuality --“nobody wants to say anything negative about homosexuals” – and the fact that you would use this as an example of “turning the tables” is a perfect illustration of what’s wrong with American society. How would I feel, you ask? I would be appalled that two people could demonstrate such impraved indifference to human life. Would I associate such criminal deviance with homosexuality? Not for a second, because I would realize the foolishness of any such ad hominem (or ad homonem, if you will) characterization. Let me turn the tables on you and ask you if you could draw a negative conclusion about blacks if this were a story about two blacks killing another black, or two steel workers killing another steel worker, or even, dare I say, two fundamentalist Christians killing another fundamentalist Christian. That dog won’t hunt.

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…and I say in return that there are certain extremist militants that by their very nature cannot be negotiated with (Al-Qaida, for instance) and must be dealt with fairly but firmly, even harshly. There can be no coming to terms with the Fred Phelpses of the world, for one simple reason: “Even the devil can quote Scripture to serve his purposes.” Let me explain what I mean: Phelps comes along and says “God hates fags” (notice that I did not use the hyphen this time; I used it before because that particular word is one that I am unwilling to use, but I’ll quote others using it if I must). I say back to Phelps “…Faith, Hope, and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.” Phelps volleys back “Thou shall not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is abomination. If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they should surely be put to death.” I retort with “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Long story short, after a protracted tennis match of scripture-swapping, the inevitable conclusion that Mr. Phelps will reach is “Even the devil can quote Scripture to serve his purposes,” and ironically, that quote is the only common ground I can find with bigots like him.

People may carry out the literal action of killing, but people don’t exist in a vacuum. There has to be a substantial measure of societal complicity for the consistent pattern of hate crimes perpetrated against whichever minority the religious right happens to have targeted in their sights. At the moment, it’s the gays. In the past, it’s been the blacks, the Jews, the American Indians (I like “indigenous peoples” myself, but Am. Ind. or Amerindian is the preferred term of that particular minority) and a host of others. When will people stop hating, pillaging and killing in the name of divinity, of all things?

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Mr. Snopes, your 411 on Mr. Gaither is sobering and excellent food for thought. I think it’s an unfortunate effect of martyrdom that the less glamorous qualities of the martyr in question tend to get glossed over, but I don’t think that necessarily shoud lessen the impact made by that persons untimely demise. Heck, even Jesus himself wasn’t spotless – he committed an act of egregious destruction of property, vandalism and disturbance of the peace on consecrated ground (even if it was for a good reason).

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Mr. Duality *
**" Best evidence indicates that his murder was a burglary that quickly got fatally out of hand."

I meant to say “mugging” but had a brainburp. Sorry about that.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by W. Panic Snopes *
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Weren’t they also charged with kidnapping? If that was the case I don’t see how it would be a simple mugging.

Marc

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Struct- would you be interested in a piece of the One True Fence?

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I am going to choose to laugh, rather than groan, at that one. :wally

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What’s depressing is that the grail is a Heineken can.;j

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I didn’t say it was a simple one.

It seems to have been an impromptu decision to get him away from the bar, mug him, and leave him stranded. After the mugging started, McKinney wouldn’t stop beating him, probably the result of a borderline psychosis mixed with drugs and alcohol. The purpose of the entire incident was more money than fagbashing (they paid for their beer with loose coins), though they did evidently use the fact he was gay to get him to leave the bar with them.

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Oh, my…

And for the record, the gay community has not forgotten Billy Jack Gaither.

Where’s my righteously indignant matt_mcl?

Esprix

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Perhaps he’s not totally forgotten, but there certainly aren’t multiple screen projects commemorating him or celebrity soundbytes talking of the horror.
He actually did make the news in Alabama the other day. There was a candlelight tolerance vigil at the state capitol (the Confederate flag in the candlelight is so strikingly beautiful) on the anniversary of his death which happened to gain more attedance and attention than it normally would have coming as it did, coincidentally, in the same week that Roy Moore, the Chief Injustice of the T’Alabam’ Supreme Court, wrote a 30 page opinion on why no lesbian mother should ever be allowed custody of a child (this in a lawsuit that was dismissed not on a gay matter but due to an open-shut procedural one). To paraphrase a quote of Cecil’s (about bullshit and Nostradamus), Alabama is to posturing dumbass demagogery what Stonehenge is to pebbles. (No offense to intelligent Alabamians, who do exist but are underrepresented in the media.)

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Do you have any cites for this? I’m only asking because I’ve always heard that he was specifically targetted because he was gay. That’s why MS become the poster boy for hate crime legislation, isn’t it?

Marc

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For the future you might want to remember a few things. You’re not going to win any moderates by claiming Jesus was gay or that he had affairs with Mary Magdalane. No mainstream christian church I know of believes these things. You might want to remember your role as the “devil” when you attempt to interprete scripture to suit your needs. Hmmm…sounds like Phelps.

Another thing you might want to remember is that you catch more flies with honey then with vinegar. If you take a hostile in your face attitude then you will find deaf ears where previously there were listeners. Just a bit of advice.

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I take it there’s also societal complicty for all rapes, murders, assaults, thefts, robberies, and income tax evasion?

Ok, let’s hate, pillage, and murder in the name of political ideology instead.

Marc