Nationwide 'Laramie' event comes to Santa Cruz

Right on Time wrote:

Even though the murderers debunked the theory that Shepard was killed for being gay, we have to endure the perpetuation of the myth of the martyrdom. Was his death a tragedy? Yes. But aren't all murders tragic?

LOL yeah, that's why the murderers attempted to use the "Gay Panic" defense.

Ooother than that, it toootally didn't have to do with him being a gay man in Wyoming.

lolol @ stupid

LooseSCruz wrote:

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LOL yeah, that's why the murderers attempted to use the "Gay Panic" defense.
Ooother than that, it toootally didn't have to do with him being a gay man in Wyoming.
lolol @ stupid

Was in Laramie a couple years ago. Stayed with people who were university professors and knew all involved - Laramie is a pretty small place where most people have ties to the university. The media blew the whole thing up - the first post was right.

Wallace is a simpleton easily sucked into any phony "progressive" cause without question.

It was ABC News that largely debunked the Shepard "hate crime" assertion:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story...

The taking of any life is tragic. It's reasonable for people who identify with him to "feel" his pain. However, others can feel left out which is one of the problems of legislating crimes that protect some people more than others.

I'd like to know why the first post was removed...

OK then he was tortured/murdered because?

Until I read these posts, I was shocked & saddened when Prop.8 passed in California. Now, I'm just saddened.

falcon wrote:

I'd like to know why the first post was removed...

Mine was the first post and it's still there. If it got removed, it's been restored. Thanks for sharing your story of Laramie. The truth always comes out in the end.

Just visited the website for the production company. Their tag line on this is "how we construct our own history". Sounds like they agree with me that this "story" is the product of someone's own construction and not historical truth.

Brian wrote:

It was ABC News that largely debunked the Shepard "hate crime" assertion:
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Story...

After the 20/20 story came out, PBS re-interviewed everyone who had been interviewed by 20/20. They did their own investigation into the situation, and their program can be found here, the third one down on the page: http://www.inthelifetv.org/
20/20 based their contentions largely on interviews with the two killers, 6 years after they were convicted. PBS showed that 20/20 didn't go to the trial transcript and didn’t have sources to back up what was said.
During the penalty phase of the trial, in order to avoid a death sentence, Shepard's murderers Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney both agreed not to talk about the crime to the media. In return, they were given two life sentences that were to be served consecutively, with no chance of parole.
However, at the time of the 20/20 interview, the attorney for Russell Henderson was petitioning for a reduced sentence for his client. He contacted 20/20 and offered them the exclusive interview, despite Henderson's plea agreement in court six years earlier. They concocted an "after the fact" story that it wasn't a hate crime -- emphasis on "fact" -- given that the murderers are on record during the trial stating under oath that it was an anti-gay hate crime.
Had their story succeeded in disproving the hate crime motive, perhaps Henderson's sentence would have been reduced. It wasn't.
Whenever the investigating officers, Rob DeBree and Dave O'Malley, and Reggie Fluty, the sheriff's deputy who found Shepard tied to the fence, are told that it wasn't a hate crime, they point to the trial transcripts, which contain the confessions and the evidence. It's all in there -- not opinion, but the words of the killers themselves.
"The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later" does just as the original play, "The Laramie Project," did. It addresses the kinds of issues that are being discussed in this forum, and it does so in an open, balanced, fair, and unbiased manner. I urge you to see it.
-- Susan Myer Silton, Director, "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later"

falcon wrote:

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Was in Laramie a couple years ago. Stayed with people who were university professors and knew all involved - Laramie is a pretty small place where most people have ties to the university. The media blew the whole thing up - the first post was right.

The media has nothing to do with it. The facts are in the trial. The defendants themselves basically admitted they killed him because he was gay by invoking the "Gay Panic" defense.

Look it up.

Why is it so hard for people to imagine that two working class young men who envied Matthew's money and saw his homosexuality as a weakness- making him an easy target, decided to rob and beat him? At least one of these men were abused as a child and openly confessed to not liking gays and is fascinated by Nazi culture.

This could happen anywhere in the US and does- crimes of sexism, classism, racisim, homophobia and religious belief are still with us.

It is unfortunate that we have to enact legislation spelling each of these forms of fear, oppression and hatred out, but it appears to be an impactful way to use the judicial system to educate ourselves.

We are all products of society and all guilty of one or more of the "isms", but perhaps we can all grow past them. Hopefully this play reminds us of our shared humanity by presenting a balanced look the many different perspectives of the people of Laramie. What better use of theater than that?

I for one, will be there on Monday.