Andrea Peyser: ‘Uncomfortable truth’ in Matthew Shepard’s death
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Stephen Jimenez didn’t set out to be the most dangerous journalist on earth.
Or, more to the point, the most dangerous gay journalist.
But Jimenez unearthed a story that few people wanted to hear. And it calls into question everything you think you know about the life and death of one of the leading icons of our age.
Matthew Shepard, college student. Killed, at 21, for being gay.
Or was he?
Jimenez’s “The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard,” out last month, challenges every cultural myth surrounding Shepard’s short life and unspeakable death. After some 13 years of digging, including interviews with more than 100 sources, including Shepard’s killers, Jimenez makes a radioactive suggestion:
The grisly murder, 15 years ago this month, was no hate crime.
Shepard’s tragic and untimely demise may not have been fueled by his sexual orientation, but by drugs. For Shepard had likely agreed to trade methamphetamines for sex. And it killed him.
New York Post
11 comments:
Wait, so a gay guy wants meth and in turn will have sex with you to get it. Hmmm... Yeah, I never heard that one before.
Meth turns your dick into an atomic cannon so there's still the homo connection.
Clearly what we need is more tolerance and acceptance of meth dealers. They shouldn't have to hide in the shadows and deny who they are just be safe from haters. Meth dealers need to march on Washington and demand their rights.
And those bastards will be there all night long and still going strong the next day.
The very early stories on MS's death actually contained strong hints from his friends that all was not right with MS. Or so I remember from reading them at the time. I always kept that "pre-narrative" early reporting in my mind as a bulwark against the myth-making.
So color me not surprised by findings of Jimenez's book.
All that matters is the narrative.
Methoamericans are people, too.
Although this will diminish the likelihood of meth marriage.
At first blush it seems he died young but maybe he lived to be 85 in meth-years.
St. Matthew of Meth.
When the "personal is political" politics will dictate that inconvenient facts and truths about the person be suppressed to promote politics. When the personal is political, individual realities bow to political necessities. All in all you're just another brick in the wall.
Is it polite to ask whether the people who murdered Matthew Shepard were gay?
@Amartel,
Is it polite to ask whether the people who murdered Matthew Shepard were gay?
According to the quotations I've seen from the book, a gay bar owner in Laramie is quoted as saying that he recognized the assailants when he first saw them on the news & at that time said to himself "....the killers are from our community...".
The Passion of Matthew Sheppard... He is not the patron saint of gays, but he would fit in just fine on Breaking Bad.
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