UM Infect Young Minds With Half-Truths in Laramie Project
by Joe Glover – June 23, 2003
College campuses are often thought to be places where free inquiry and open discussion of ideas can run free so students and faculty alike can explore every possible reality. Yet, many times, the cultural elites who lead such universities regularly sponsor one-sided propaganda wars intended to infect impressionable minds with a singular bias toward hot topics in popular culture.
Such is the case at the University of Maryland (UM) this year where administrators are distributing 10,000 copies of a play about a homosexual who was beaten to death in 1998 near Laramie, Wyoming. By requiring students to read “The Laramie Project,” the school employs a now-common technique used by homosexual activists to establish myth as fact before a debate over the issue of so-called “hate crimes” can even begin.
The first myth the University of Maryland attempts to establish as a fact is the idea that crimes against people who engage in immorality are commonplace. The author of the play recently told The Baltimore Sun, “How many more Matthew Shepards have to die before we can get past this conversation?” Yet, violent criminals are rarely ever motivated by their victims’ sexual practices. Millions of criminal acts are committed each year, but only a handful can be categorized under the broad umbrella of “hate crimes.” While most hate crimes are committed against people of color, very few are committed against homosexuals, and even fewer involve weapons or serious injury to the victims.
Another myth the University of Maryland would like to establish as a fact is the notion that simply “being gay” invites acts of violence from those who disagree with the homosexual lifestyle. For example, The Laramie Project highlights the ridiculous claim by a lesbian in Laramie that she fears every truck she sees doing a u-turn is planning to run her over. Anecdotes like this leave readers with the impression that every person who engages in private sexual misconduct must live each day with the fear that they may be killed at any moment simply for walking down the street.
Not only do crimes against homosexuals rarely happen that way, it’s probably not what happened in Laramie in 1998, either. After piecing together the incidents that lead to Shepard’s tragic death, it appears his own actions aggravated an already dangerous situation, bringing his ultimate demise. Shepard, who was known to have HIV, was also known to aggressively seek sexual encounters with straight men who repeatedly rejected his advances. According to an Associated Press report, he got punched in the face just a few weeks before his death for ignoring the rejections of a straight bartender.
On the night Shepard was abducted, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson were high on drugs, drinking, and looking for someone to beat up and rob for kicks, as they had done in the past. Shepard, being a small-framed college kid who had a propensity to approach straight guys in bars, was in the wrong place at the wrong time. After the three met, it was determined that Shepard would be the pair’s next victim. They acted agreeable to Shepard’s invitation in order to lure him away from the bar, and the robbery was underway.
Perhaps Matthew Shepard would be alive today if he had cared that having sex with two strangers could infect them with his HIV. Perhaps he would still be around if he hadn’t infuriated Aaron McKinney by grabbing his crotch and licking his ear repeatedly while they drove away from the bar. Perhaps Shepard would be alive if only he had learned from his run-in with a straight bartender a few weeks earlier, that pursuing straight guys in bars can invite hostility. Sadly, we’ll never know.
One thing is sure, though. Matthew Shepard was anything but an innocent party who was killed simply because he was gay. He aggressively sought a potentially deadly encounter on the night he was abducted. Not his own death, but the meaningless (at least to him) death of his would-be lovers through a sexual encounter that would gratify his own desires at the expense of his victims’ lives.
One has to wonder if the University of Maryland will ever require students to read a book that tells the story like that. Maybe then the school could truly make a claim to foster “free inquiry” and “open discussion” on controversial topics in popular culture.
Joe Glover is the president of Family Policy Network in Forest, Virginia.
Note: Although McKinney’s attorneys withdrew the so-called “gay panic” defense, only after the judge in the case refused to allow it on a legal technicality.
Related links:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,63487,00.html
http://www.badgerherald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/09/19/3d8934c3e0d49
http://www.browndailyherald.com/stories.cfm?S=1&ID=7163
http://www.jewishtimes.com/News/2521.stm
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=13773