How I murdered Matthew
Shepard
Here I am reading about the furor surrounding the ‘investigative
journalist, TV producer and authority figure’, Stephen Jimenez, who has spent
ten years interviewing people about the crucifixion of 21 year old Matthew
Shepard. Spending all that time seemingly trying to prove that it even though
Matthew was gay, he was not killed because of it.
Some coincidence, because last week, two young men - obviously
gay because they were singing songs from Wicked
on the back of a Manchester tram - were followed by fifteen thugs and beaten to
a pulp. Had they been singing football songs they may have been spared - show
tunes apparently a good gay reason to beat the crap out of someone. This
follows a litany of supposed liberal-left bashing beginning with my broadcasting
associate, Bill Maher. Gosh, the US neo-communists and UK terrafeminists are so
frigging tetchy.
Matthew Shepard - who’s memory Obama signed the 2009 Matthew
Shepard anti-hate Act for; Matthew Shepard whose legacy is about hate crime irrespective of
gender; Matthew Shepard, who up until the recent publication of Stephen Jimenez’s, The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths
about the Murder of Matthew Shepard, was
the poster boy for homo hatred, having been both gay and crucified. This same
book ‘uncovered’ that one of his executors was gay and there was, shock, drugs
involved on all sides. (See how evil these male homos really are? Drugs!)
That Matthew Shepard was from an affluent family, (he had it so good - what’s
he doing sucking dodgy chode?) He was apparently gang raped by men in Morocco
(not a potential for all gay men by virtue of the way some of us have sex?). And
the beat goes on…
Coinky-dinky,
this week I’m off to see Party Monster and the new documentary which highlights
the life and the release from prison of gay male gay murderer Michael Alig, the
original club kid, who killed his lover and drug dealer Angel Melendez in 1996.
A ketamine death. A gay, male, sex drug, death. Tut tut.
But
maybe it’s our lives as outsiders that are to blame - and I stand alongside my
gay, male, murdering brothers here. Don’t forget that everyone’s equal in the
sauna – so, whether Matthew Shepard was rich or whether he courted dangerous gay
men or whether he took drugs is therefore not in question. It’s moot.
Just
maybe it’s because he grew up gay, not male, that made him buy all the
drugs in the first place and hang out with the degenerate low-lifers - and
those degenerates with him. Perhaps, just perhaps, he had a crap life
irrespective of the privilege - because he was gay. Maybe, it was his life as a
gay man that lead to his murder by another gay man. Maybe it was Matthew’s
closet life in Saudi and the lonely journey many gay men seem to have that lead
to his execution. Because this is what both Matthew Shepard and Angel Melendez
actually represent whether they had been executed by their assailants or by
Aileen Wuornos (as tricks), Myra Hindley (as children) Karla Homolka (“It was
my husband who killed my sister”) Rosemary West (“It was all my husband’s doing”)
Mary Bell (But I’m still a child myself) Ruth Ellis (he deserved to die because
he didn’t love me). Margaret Thatcher (Murderer of hope, perfectly placed to
add more women to her cabinet…)
The mystery remains. Can women
and homosexual men be as cruel and evil as heterosexual homophobic racist misogynists?
Interesting? You decide. You can see with all the evidence above that we’re all
somehow culpable…
I’m both Matthew and his murderer. Live with it.
Perhaps, just perhaps, given the
permanent lack of acceptance of male homosexuality, Matthews death was the
result of enduring drug use? Tsk - of course it was. Drugs are and have been a
way of coping with the shackles of life sometimes before you even get a chance
to live it. Matthew had that crucifix on his back the moment he knew he was
gay. To reduce this tragedy into gender blame is an execution in itself.
This book and subsequent ‘free’ comment, states a plethora
of terrible accusations that so many
of my fellow gay travellers live with and refuse to deny. First that Gay men
take significant sexual risks – yes to that. It states that Matthew was HIV+ at
the time of his death. (Is this really still used as a hate salvo about gay
men’s sexual practice?) OK, so he was a drug fuelled, disparate, HiFIve queer
who courted danger. Yes, but there was apparently a shipment of Crystal Meth
that the murderers wanted to steal from Matthew. Hang on, so, a drug fuelled,
21 year old, desperate HIV+, drug dealer supporting his habit? I’m sorry, this
sounds like a place that so many of my gay brothers are, or have been in, at
some point. This goes with the very fabric of many gay mens lives. Apparently,
according to Jimenez, “This does not make the
perfect poster boy for the gay-rights movement.” Oh, I think it does, Stevie.
All of this is the apparently justifiable reason why Matthew
died. Because of his life as a gay man. Because of the trajectory so many gay
men take during their sometimes shitty time on this planet. The price of being
removed from the male and female heteronorm.
These lives (my life) according to some haters - both male
and female, are good enough reason not
to support advocating services for the protection of young gay men. Like not
giving money to Band Aid because you’ve just found out that not every child in
Africa is starving. Or perhaps that every recently dead Palestinian baby is, by
definition, a dead jihadist.
I’m both Matthew and his murderer. Live with it.
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