Free Republic

LOS ANGELES — Judy Shepard will be in Denver on Thursday night, about a two-hour drive from where her son, Matt, was brutally murdered in a gay hate crime 16 years ago. The Nets also will be in Denver on Thursday for their game against the Nuggets, and Judy says she has a warm welcome for Jason Collins if they cross paths. RELATED: HISTORY MADE AS COLLINS SIGNS WITH NETS, PLAYS IN GAME VS. LAKERS “I’m just happy for him. It’s wonderful that he’s playing again. I’d tell him thank you and give him a big hug. I have not...

Remember the terrible murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyo. in 1998 -- tortured, beaten and left hanging on a fence to die -- because he was gay? The American people were led from the outset to believe that Shepard was the victim of a hate crime, murdered because he was gay. And that is how virtually every American still views the story. In the words of Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), "Matthew Shepard is to gay rights what Emmett Till was to the civil rights movement." A play based on Shepard's killing, "The Laramie Project" became, according to the...

An estimated 20 players from the Ole Miss football team reportedly disrupted the university theater department's performance of "The Laramie Project." The play covers the aftermath of the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, an openly gay male student from Laramie County, Wyoming.

Within days of being brutally murdered in Wyoming in 1998, Matthew Shepard became for the Left a Christ figure, a sacrificial savior of the gay-rights cause. They even composed a passion play indicting a bigoted America in the hate crime, "The Laramie Project," that's been performed across the country, even in public schools. Ford's Theatre, the historic site of Abraham Lincoln's murder, has been selected as a natural Washington site for a restaging of this play, as well as a whole slate of panel discussions and other events on preventing hate, with The Washington Post signing as "Official Media Partner."...

Six years ago, on a cold October night on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyo., 21-year-old gay college student Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead. He was found 18 hours later and rushed to the hospital, where he lingered on the edge of death for nearly five days before succumbing to his injuries.The story garnered national attention when the attack was characterized as a hate crime. But Shepard's killers, in their first interview since their convictions, tell "20/20's" Elizabeth Vargas that money and drugs motivated their actions that night, not hatred of gays.While Shepard...

Breitbart is highlighting a book of an award-winning investigative journalist that turns the narrative surrounding the tragic death of a gay Wyoming man, whose murder gave the impetus for hate-crime legislation, on its head. The Book of Matt by Stephen Jimenez will be published this week and is already causing consternation among gay activists because it turns a homophobic hate crime into a spat between two meth-addled gay lovers. The story that we are most familiar with is that Shepard met a couple of men in a bar who offered him a ride home. They instead took him to a...

But what really happened to Matthew Shepard? He was beaten, tortured, and killed by one or both of the men now serving life sentences. But it turns out, according to Jiminez, that Shepard was a meth dealer himself and he was friends and sex partners with the man who led in his killing. Indeed, his killer may have killed him because Shepard allegedly came into possession of a large amount of methamphetamine and refused to give it up.

In what is being acknowledged even by liberal Catholics as a courageous move, Springfield, IL Bishop Thomas Paprocki debated dissident nun Sr. Jeannine Gramick on the topic of gay “marriage” before a decidedly gay-friendly crowd on Friday. In a shocking revelation in his opening remarks, the bishop told the crowd that his former secretary was brutally murdered by a gay activist simply for suggesting that he change his lifestyle. Heckling and insults from the crowd and were expected and received as the bishop lay out the argument in favor of traditional marriage, after which he concluded, “some of you may...

The metaphor "the War on Christmas" can be mocked -- as if Santa and his reindeer are dodging anti-aircraft fire. But many of our public schools have church-and-state sensitivity police with an alarming degree of Santaphobia. Anyone who's attended a school's "winter concert" in December with no traditional Christmas music -- not even "Frosty the Snowman" -- knows the drill. The vast Christian majority (that funds the public schools) is told that school is no place to celebrate one's religion, even in its most watered-down and secularized forms. There are real-life stories of Scrooge-like school administrators, like the one at...

Back in 2007, we assembled background info on the horrid propaganda play, “The Laramie Project.” Performed at high schools and colleges around the country, it uses raw emotion and lies to draw youth into the sexual-radical “rights” cause. The recruitment efforts never let up. So we’re not surprised to see “Laramie” being pushed again by Arts Emerson and the Boston Globe this week. They’re even exploiting the Governor’s daughter as a “panelist”. Emerson faculty are working with the sexual-radical groups GLAD, GLAAD, PFLAG, GLSEN, Matthew Shepard Foundation, Human Rights Campaign, and Boston’s “Theater Offensive” (“ambitious programming [on] the cutting edge...

It does not matter so much what God thinks of sodomy [I have it on good report, that He does not think well of it, despite that modern liberal churches and synagogues have all but sanctified it], but how can the American people accept this new found glory in all things homosexual? Will they allow the Safe School Czar Jennings and his cohorts [members of of GLISN and NAMBLA] to thrust their USDA Approved buggery on public school children? Now that the Jenning' FistGate has been outed, proving that the Gay Lobby has, indeed, very diabolical plans to ramrod (forgive...

'Hate' Crimes: The House has voted to make it a federal crime to assault people because of their sexual orientation. Aside from violating the Constitution's equal-protection clause, just what does this have to do with national defense? The House voted 281 to 146 Thursday to make it a crime to attack homosexuals and others. The measure was attached to a must-pass $680 billion defense bill. We think the amendment itself is a crime against common sense and the law. Saying "it's a very exciting day for us here in the Capitol," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the passage of the...

I’ll grant supporters of hate crimes legislation one thing: they certainly understand the tactical advantage of being hateful when accusing others of hate. This weekend, after the Senate passed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Bill, I posted several articles on Facebook and my blog questioning the claim that Matthew Shepard was murdered solely because he was gay. Although the media and gay rights activists treat it as conventional wisdom, this claim has always been in dispute. Shepard’s murderers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, admitted from the start that they were on a drug binge at the time of the...

The United States Senate approved an amendment yesterday adding "hate crimes" legislation to the annual Defense Authorization bill, which would add "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" to the list of federally-protected classes. The Senate voted 63 - 28 to attach S.909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (MSHCPA), to the $680 billion defense bill meant to support US troops fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada favored attaching the hotly-debated bill as an amendment, instead of putting it forward as a stand-alone bill, in hopes of easing its passage, but his tactic...

Senate passage of hate-crimes bill wins plaudits By Eric Fingerhut · July 17, 2009 Jewish groups are hailing the Senate's passage of legislation expanding federal involvement in hate crimes. The Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and B'nai B'rith International have all released statements today praising the vote attaching the hate-crimes bill to the defense authorization bill. "Bias-motivated crimes have terrorized families and communities for far too long," said RAC director Rabbi David Saperstein. "The Senate’s vote for the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act is a celebration of tolerance and respect and will give...

WASHINGTON -- A day after Arizona Sen. John McCain forged an unusual bipartisan alliance with the White House on cutting $1.75 billion in increased spending for the F-22 jet fighter, congressional Democratic leaders pressured lawmakers to drop the matter to clear the way for a hate crimes provision in the defense spending measure. The move, backed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sparked heated debate on the Senate floor as McCain unsuccessfully sought to remove the hate crimes amendment, known as the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, from the broader defense spending measure on the grounds that the...

Innocent-seeming questionnaires, tests, and surveys are increasingly being disseminated by government officials so that they have complete histories on every citizen. At this writing, Republican Congresswoman Virginia Foxx of North Carolina is busy apologizing for her politically incorrect gaffe in arguing against legislation that would expand federal hate-crime laws to include sexual orientation. She pointed to the infamous Matthew Shepard case as a “hoax” inasmuch as Shepard’s killers appeared to have been interested in drugs, not sexual-identity issues. Were Foxx a teenager today, she would be spared the necessity of balancing her conservative views on sexuality against the left’s Orwellian...

A Republican lawmaker has enraged supporters of "hate crimes" legislation for suggesting that the horrible murder of Matthew Shepard was not motivated by anti-homosexual bigotry. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) drew the ire of homosexual activists and other supporters of hate crimes legislation last week when she suggested that the tragic 1998 murder of college student Matthew Shepard was not a hate crime. "We know that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't because he was gay," Foxx said on the House floor. "The bill was named for him -- the hate crimes bill was...

Democrats are making it illegal to think certain things. The House of Representatives passed legislation yesterday that extends federal so-called hate-crimes laws to include sexual orientation. This is a move to provide special status for specific groups. It is also unnecessary. If a miscreant kills or rapes somebody, he should be prosecuted for murder or rape. What he might have been thinking is beside the point. Hate-crimes legislation obscures the fact that the underlying crime is already prosecutable under existing laws. The bill is named after Matthew Shepard, a homosexual who was beaten to death near Laramie, Wyo., in 1998....

For once, I actually agree with Olbermann. Rep. Foxx should indeed apologize. Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten, tortured and murdered in Wyoming. His story is portrayed in the play and film "The Laramie Project". Personally, I disagree with "hate crime" legislation because all crime can be considered "hateful". Does it really matter why someone is murdered? Murder is by definition a "hate crime". Is there really any need to complicate the laws? That said, Rep. Foxx's comments are truly "despicable", insensitive and shameful.