(YF2d) hate crime laws

Hate crime laws give special legal protection to members of certain identifiable groups. This of course diminishes the protection for people who are not members of such groups. The word "identifiable" includes "self-identifiable", as for example men who claim to be women. A Victoria BC Canada restaurant owner was fined because he refused to let one of these men use the women's washroom. I thought the Magna Carta would invalidate hate crime laws, but apparently not. ******* The notion of a "hate crime" can be used to inflict injustice. Here's an extreme example of how a hate crime law can be used to not only reduce legal protection for an unprotected group but to actually take away all their rights. Hilary Clinton and others have proposed that the United Nations make abortion a basic human right. This implies that opposition to abortion is a violation of a basic human right and a hate crime against women. ******* By the way, which is worse: to kill someone in a fit of passion or in cold blood? It seems to me that discrimination, intimidation and persecution are better legal concepts than hate, which may or may not be activated, and which is difficult if not impossible to measure. In my opinion it would be better to focus on persecution rather than hate. ******* The links at the end of this folder will take you to folders which document the persecution of members of identifiable groups. ******* Tolerance of homosexual activities is increasing and crimes by heterosexuals against homosexuals are rare. (Most crimes against homosexuals are committed by other homosexuals.) ******* On this date 07-02-24, this folder contains 6 articles. ******* item 1) NEW HATE CRIME STATISTICS RELEASED ******* item 2) WHY HATE CRIMES ARE A BAD IDEA ******* item 3) BILL C-25O IS A HATE CRIME AGAINST HETEROSEXUALS ******* item 4) TWO 'GAY'-RELATED MURDERS SHOW WHERE BILL C-250 WILL TAKE US - CHP ******* item 5) EXPLOITING MATTHEW SHEPARD ******* item 6) MATTHEW SHEPARD MYTH ******************************************************************************************************** ******* item 1) NEW HATE CRIME STATISTICS RELEASED ******* December 3, 2002 ******* by Steve Jordahl, correspondent, Focus on the Family ******* The FBI has released its annual report on hate crimes for 2001, and homosexual activists are again expected to misuse them to call for a host of new legislation mandating special status and protection for gays. ******* Homosexual groups like the Human Rights Campaign and Lambda Legal are furiously lobbying to get hate crimes legislation on the books in various states across America. In their effort to do this, they often cite statistics they claim show an epidemic of hate crimes in the country. ******* Yet Matt Kaufman, who has reported on hate crime statistics for Focus on the Family, says although individual cases are highlighted in the media, overall occurrences of hate crimes are extremely rare. ******* "For example, there were almost 16,000 murders in the United States in 2001. Only 10 of those were hate crimes and only one of them was a hate crime based on homosexuality," Kaufman said. ******* He added that the FBI's latest numbers show most of the hate crimes included were barely crimes at all. ******* "This year, more than half the hate crimes reported come in this category called 'intimidation.' (That term) doesn't exist in most other crime reports and it basically boils down to somebody says they felt threatened or demeaned," Kaufman said. "But it's not a real crime in anywhere near the sense most of us would think of as a real crime." ******* Why is the homosexual lobby so anxious to call these incidents crimes? Mat Staver, president of the Liberty Counsel, a religious-liberties legal group, says its part of a bigger plan. ******* "I think the agenda behind the homosexual movement ... is to elevate sexual behavior or homosexuality to a point where any speech to the contrary is considered a hate crime," Staver said. ******* He predicted they won't stop until their lifestyle is totally accepted by society. ******* "The ultimate agenda is to dominate — not to have tolerance, but to dominate — the worldview, and that worldview is homosexuality." ******* To read the FBI's 2001 "Hate Crime Statistics" report, see the Bureau's Web site: ******* http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel02/2001hc.htm ******* (NOTE: Links to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family do not necessarily imply an endorsement of all their contents by Focus on the Family.) ******************************************************************************************************** ******* item 2) WHY HATE CRIMES ARE A BAD IDEA ******* Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 ******* From: "Mission America" ******* Bob Knight has written the following letter to the editor in response to the Portsmouth Herald's very biased article about Senator John Sununu's vote against the hate crimes bill in the Senate. This explains clearly why hate crimes laws which add "sexual orientation" as a category should be opposed by all Americans. ----------------------- To the Editor: ******* In the article "Sununu takes heat for hate crimes vote" (June 24), no one is quoted supporting Sen. Sununu, only homosexual activists trashing him. Furthermore, the activists were allowed to cite the 1998 beating death of Matthew Shepard without context. ******* Mr. Shepard's case actually epitomizes why hate crimes laws are NOT needed: His killers were convicted and sentenced to the maximum penalties in a state (Wyoming) without a hate crimes law. The same went for Texas dragging death victim James Byrd's killers. There is no evidence that prosecutors or police are not giving adequate attention to cases involving homosexuals or minority victims. The law is supposed to be blind, with everyone getting the same protection. ******* Hate crime laws violate equal protection by giving some crime victims' cases more attention than others'. If Grandma is murdered by a thug, it is a local crime, and her case gets local police and prosecutors. If someone throws a punch at a homosexual man, that would be a federal crime under Kennedy's "hate crimes" law, with potential federal dollars and help from federal agents. Most people think Grandma deserves at least as much protection as a homosexual. ******* Hate crime laws also pave the way for suppressing beliefs and thoughts. Criminal acts are already illegal, and the prosecutor is forced to focus on motivation, not just intent. In Canada and Sweden, hate crime laws are being used to suppress speech on issues involving homosexuality. In America, we have a chance to halt that dangerous trend. ******* Senator Sununu did the right thing in his vote, while Sen. Gregg caved to a small but vocal special interest group that wrongly defines holding traditional moral values as "hatred." ******* Robert Knight, Director, Culture & Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America, Washington, DC ------------------------- Mail service for Mission America provided by America Family Online www.afo.net ******* Mission America www.missionamerica.com ******************************************************************************************************** ******* item 3 BILL C-25O IS A HATE CRIME AGAINST HETEROSEXUALS ******* The following article is about Bill C-250, Canada's "hate crime law". That law will be used to deny equal justice to "heterosexuals" and to give preferential treatment to homosexuals, lesbians, and others. ******* The article relates C-250 to two murders. *** One was the murder of a 22 year old homosexuals and was widely portrayed in the media as a hate crime. The message was that Mathew Shepard was killed because he was a homosexual. Since then the two men who killed him have stated that the motive was robbery, not hate for homosexuals. ******* The other murder was the sex murder of 13 year old Jesse Dirkhising by 2 homosexuals. This murder was not widely publicised in the media and was not referred to as a hate crime. Here's the article. ********************************************************************************************************* ******* item 4) TWO 'GAY'-RELATED MURDERS SHOW WHERE BILL C-250 WILL TAKE US - CHP Communique Vol 9 No 42 November 11, 2002 ******* by National Leader Ron Gray, CHP Communique, Box 4958, Station E. Ottawa ON K1S 5J1 ******* Ph.(819) 669-0673 ******* Fax (819) 669-6498 ******* E-mail:edchp@ottawa.com ******* From: "D.Fernandes" ******* Original Message From: Annie Kok [mailto:askok@sympatico.ca] ******* Other commentaries can be found at www.chp.ca "CHP Speaks Out" ******* This communique may be copied ******* The month of October brought two sad anniversaries: three years ago, Mathew Shepard and Jesse Dirkhising were murdered. ******* Though the two murders happened in the U.S., they're important as Canada considers Bill C-250 - a proposal to add "sexual orientation" to the list of protected categories under the "hate crimes" sections of our Criminal Code. ******* You probably remember the case of Mathew Shepard: he was a 'gay' 22-year-old college man who was beaten to death in Colorado. It was all over the news for weeks. The media made it a cause celebre, because it was widely assumed to have been a "hate crime" - although it could also have been caused by an excess of what some members of the 'gay' community mistakenly call "love". Most injuries to homosexuals, it turns out, are caused by other homosexuals. ******* But you probably didn't hear about 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising: he was bound with duct tape and sodomized for hours by two homosexual men, who drugged him, went out for sandwiches, and then resumed their sexual abuse until the child died. They used him as a sex toy, and abused him to death. ******* The reason few people know about Jesse Dirkhising is that the 'news' media gave 18 times as much coverage to Mathew Shepard's death as they did to Jesse's. The brutal rape and murder of a child by two homosexuals was regarded as "less important" by the media gatekeepers than the pro-gay propaganda that could be extracted from Shepard's death. ******* Here's the urgent connection to C-250: under this odious law as proposed by Svend Robinson, the courts would be compelled to regard a death like that of Mathew Shepard as "more serious" than the grisly crime against Jesse Dirkhising. ******* That's why C-250 is bad law. ********************************************************************************************************* ******* item 5) EXPLOITING MATTHEW SHEPARD ******* From: "PFOX" ******* Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 ******* By Cliff Kincaid, AIM Report | December 22, 2004 ******* Matthew wasn't "gay" and "proud." He was profoundly troubled. ******* You know there must be something happening when the New York Times praises ABC News for running "an intellectually brave episode" of the "20/20" show that has angered the homosexual lobby. That means the Times found it convincing, and so did we. ******* In the November 27 show, "20/20" uncovered the truth about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, widely depicted as a hate crime because he was a homosexual. Almost everything we were told about this murder at the time by ABC, the Times and every other major news organization was false. ******* We were told that this University of Wyoming student was murdered simply because he was a homosexual. The truth is that he was the victim of a robbery gone bad by two drug addicts. What's more, Shepard was also a heavy drug user who was HIV-positive. Not only were the perpetrators of this brutal crime not "homophobes," but one of them knew Shepherd and was allegedly bisexual. The real story of the Matthew Shepard case, as the prosecutor says on "20/20," concerns the dangers of methamphetamine. The two killers and Shepard were big meth users. ******* Why were the stories about this crime so wrong? The gay rights movement wanted to depict Shepard as an innocent victim of a homophobic society. This played into their demands for legislation to curb so-called "hate crimes." One of the perpetrators used that to his advantage, arguing when he went on trial that he went into a panic when Shepard tried to proposition him at a bar. His girlfriend made the same claim in the media, including on "20/20." But now they say it was all a ruse, designed to get him a reduced sentence by suggesting that he wasn't in control of his faculties when the murder occurred. The ploy failed. Both of those involved in the murder got life in prison. ******* ABC and correspondent Elizabeth Vargas are now under heavy fire from the homosexual lobby for dispelling the Shepard myth. But ABC and Vargas also show Shepard to be a very depressed young man, on the verge of suicide, because of his homosexual lifestyle. The "gay rights" lobby doesn't want to face up to that. Matthew wasn't "gay" and "proud." He was profoundly troubled. ******* And that is why we probably won't see ABC or the rest of the media take this story one step further into the issue of how homosexuals can leave their dangerous lifestyle. Dr. Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College has produced a videotape, "I Do Exist!," on the phenomenon of the ex-homosexuals. The video explains how people fall into the homosexual lifestyle and how they can get out of it. If this kind of message had been available to Matthew Shepard, he might be alive today. ******* Instead, as "20/20," explains, he was involved in a lifestyle that took him to seedy bars and wild parties, running into people like Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, who would eventually kill him. Their motive, however, was not hatred of homosexuals but money. They wanted Shepard's money to buy more meth. In that regard, Rep. Mark Souder recently presided over a House narcotics subcommittee hearing into the growing national problem of methamphetamine abuse. That's where the media should devote some more of their attention. ******* (Columnist Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at cliff.kincaid@aim.org) ******* © 2004 Accuracy In Media, All Rights Reserved._______________________ This article is available online at: http://www.pfox.org/asp/newsman/templates/newstemplate.asp?articleid=207&zoneid=15 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To subscribe to this list of ex-gay news and views, send a blank email to: Ex-Gays-subscribe@topica.com ******************************************************************************************************** ******* item 6) MATTHEW SHEPARD MYTH ******* From: "PFOX" ******* Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 ******* New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder ******* Killers Talk About Crime That Shocked the Nation ******* by 20/20 ABC News, Elizabaeth Vargas ******* Dec. 1, 2004 - 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 lay unconscious in a hospital, the national press quickly arrived in Laramie. Cal Rerucha, who prosecuted the case, told Vargas the media descended on Laramie "like locusts." ******* "We knew in the newsroom the day it happened, this is going to be a huge story, this is going to attract international interest," said Jason Marsden of "The Casper Star-Tribune." ******* "I remember one of my fellow reporters saying, 'this kid is going to be the new poster child for gay rights," he added. News of Shepard's death sparked reaction overseas and demonstrations across America. ******* "I think a lot of gay people, when they first heard of that horrifying event, felt sort of punched in the stomach. I mean it kind of encapsulated all our fears of being victimized," said writer Andrew Sullivan, a prominent gay rights advocate. ******* But as the push for gay rights found new force, so did a corresponding backlash from anti-gay opponents who came from out of state to grab a piece of the media spotlight. ******* Tensions were so high that Shepard's father wore a bulletproof vest under his suit when he spoke at his son's funeral service. ******* "The saddest part of this whole case was at Matthew's funeral, when they, these people, refused to let Matthew be buried with dignity," said Rerucha. "I never saw people that could hate so much." ******* Killers Both Receive Two Consecutive Life Sentences ******* Local residents Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, both 21 at the time, were charged with Shepard's murder. Henderson's case came before the court first. To avoid the possibility of receiving the death penalty, he pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping and received two consecutive life terms in prison. ******* McKinney's case went to trial a year after Shepard's death. He was convicted of felony murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping. Before the jury was about to decide his sentence, he, too, reached a deal that allowed him to avoid a possible death penalty. Both men are serving double life sentences in prison. ******* Authorities asked "20/20" not to disclose the prison location. ******* While McKinney and Henderson admit to killing Shepard, both men -- and the man who prosecuted the case -- now say the real story is not what it seemed. ******* Many area residents were shocked that the crime was committed by two young men from their community. But both McKinney and Henderson came from classically troubled backgrounds. ******* Henderson was born to a teenage alcoholic and raised without a father. He says he saw his mother being beaten up by a series of boyfriends, some of whom also assaulted Henderson. ******* McKinney's childhood, too, was less than picture-perfect. His father, a long-haul trucker, was rarely home and eventually divorced McKinney's mother, a nurse who later died as a result of a botched surgery. McKinney received a malpractice settlement of nearly $100,000 after his mother's death. He says he spent most of that money on things like cars and drugs. ******* McKinney admits to Vargas that by the time he was 18 he had a serious methamphetamine habit. ******* Shepard Haunted by Own Difficulties ******* Despite his strong family life, Shepard had troubles of his own. His mother, Judy Shepard, says her son's problems had started three years earlier during a high school trip to Morocco, where he was beaten and raped. ******* "It made him pull within himself. He became withdrawn, depression, panic attacks," she said. ******* Some of Shepard's friends say he was still a troubled young man when he enrolled at the University of Wyoming in the fall of 1998. ******* Tom O'Connor, known as "Doc," who ran a limousine service and sometimes drove Shepard, said just days before Shepard's death, Matt told him he was HIV-positive and was considering suicide. ******* One of Shepard's college friends, Tina LaBrie, was concerned that Shepard's depression might be somehow connected to involvement with drugs. "He said 'Everywhere I move, it seems like I get sucked into the drug scene,'" LaBrie told Vargas. ******* Laramie's Dangerous World of Methamphetamine ******* As a heavy user and a dealer, McKinney was well-known with the methamphetamine crowd, according to Ryan Bopp, who was one of McKinney's friends and drug associates at the time. By the fall of 1998, McKinney had blown through his inheritance and was now the parent of a new baby with his girlfriend, Kristen Price. ******* "I think he was really torn because it is the desperation of getting your fix or taking care of your family," Price said. In the days leading up to the attack on Shepard, she said, McKinney was using methamphetamine every day. ******* Bopp, who says he left Laramie and the drug world behind six years ago, told "20/20" that he and McKinney had been on a drug binge in the week leading up to the attack on Shepard. ******* "Aaron and I had been awake for about a week or so prior to this whole thing happening ," Bopp said. "We were on a hard-core bender that week." ******* Bopp also admits that a week before the murder he was so desperate for methamphetamine, that he traded McKinney a .357-Magnum pistol in exchange for one gram of methamphetamine. McKinney would later use that weapon to beat Shepard. ******* The Night of the Crime ******* McKinney told Vargas he set out the night of Oct. 6, 1998, to rob a drug dealer of $10,000 worth of methamphetamine. But after several attempts, McKinney was not able to carry out his plan. ******* Henderson said he thought if he could keep McKinney drinking, he'd forget the robbery plan. ******* But according to McKinney, when he encountered Shepard at the Fireside Lounge, he saw an easy mark. ******* McKinney told "20/20" Shepard was well-dressed and assumed he had a lot of cash. ******* Shepard was sitting at the bar, McKinney recalls. "He said he was too drunk to go home. And then he asked me if I'd give him a ride. So I thought, yeah, sure, what the hell," according to McKinney. ******* All three got in the front seat of McKinney's pickup, and Henderson took the wheel. McKinney told police that at some point Shepard reached over and grabbed his leg. In response, McKinney said, he hit him with his pistol. "I was getting ready to pull it on him anyway," he said. ******* McKinney says he asked for, and got, Shepard's wallet, which had only $30 in it. But even though Shepard handed over his money, McKinney continued beating him. ******* When pressed by Vargas as to why he continued beating Shepard after he had already taken his wallet, McKinney said, "Sometimes when you have that kind of rage going through you, there's no stopping it. I've attacked my best friends coming off of meth binges." ******* McKinney says he directed Henderson to drive the truck to a secluded spot on the outskirts of Laramie so they could leave Shepard and have time to get away. They stopped at a wooden buck fence and took Shepard from the truck. ******* On McKinney's instructions, Henderson got a rope from the truck and tied Shepard to a fence post. Henderson claims at some point he tried, but failed, to stop McKinney from beating Shepard further. ******* In a statement to the court, Henderson said McKinney struck him across the face with the gun when he tried to stop the continued beating of Shepard. ******* Henderson retreated to the truck, leaving McKinney alone with Shepard at the fence. McKinney tells "20/20" he fears these last blows he dealt Shepard at the fence were the fatal blows. ******* New Fracas Leads to Arrest ******* McKinney took Shepard's wallet and his shoes, got back in the truck and told Henderson to drive to town. He says his plan was to burglarize Shepard's apartment. But when they parked the truck they encountered two young men who police say were vandalizing cars. Hostile words led to a fight and for the second time that night, McKinney went on the attack. ******* One of the men was struck so hard his skull was fractured. The injured man's friend retaliated, slamming McKinney in the head with a small bat. Everyone fled, just before a police car happened on the scene. ******* Sgt. Flint Waters gave chase and grabbed Henderson. Then he discovered some key evidence that would later be used to link Henderson and McKinney to the attack on Shepard. ******* "I looked in the back of the truck and laying in the back of the truck was a large-frame revolver. The thing was huge, like an 8-inch barrel that had blood all over it. And there was some rope and a coat in the truck; there was I believe a shoe sitting in the front. ... Seeing that the gun covered in blood, I assumed that there was a lot more going on than what we'd stumbled onto so far," he said. ******* With that much evidence and McKinney's later confession, the attack on Shepard was not a hard case to solve. McKinney and Henderson were charged with murder. The mystery in this story was not who did it, but why? ******* Shepard's Friends Suspect Attack Was Hate-Motivated ******* Just hours after Shepard's battered body was discovered, and before anyone knew who had beaten him, Shepard's friends Walt Boulden and Alex Trout began spreading the word that Shepard was openly gay and that they were concerned the attack may have been a gay-bashing. ******* Boulden told "20/20" in an interview shortly after the attack in 1998, "I know in the core of my heart it happened because he revealed he was gay. And it's chilling. They targeted him because he was gay." ******* Prosecutor Rerucha recalls that Shepard's friends also contacted his office. Rerucha told "20/20," "They were calling the County Attorney's office, they were calling the media and indicating Matthew Shepard is gay and we don't want the fact that he is gay to go unnoticed." ******* Helping fuel the gay hate crime theory were statements made to police and the media by Kristen Price, McKinney's girlfriend. (Price was charged with felony accessory after-the-fact to first-degree murder. She later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of misdemeanor interference with police officers.) ******* Price now says that at the time of the crime she thought things would go easier for McKinney if his violence were seen as a panic reaction to an unwanted gay sexual advance. ******* But today, Price tells Vargas the initial statements she made were not true and tells Vargas that McKinney's motive was money and drugs. "I don't think it was a hate crime at all. I never did," she said. ******* Former Laramie Police Detective Ben Fritzen, one of the lead investigators in the case, also believed robbery was the primary motive. "Matthew Shepard's sexual preference or sexual orientation certainly wasn't the motive in the homicide," he said. ******* "If it wasn't Shepard, they would have found another easy target. What it came down to really is drugs and money and two punks that were out looking for it," Fritzen said. ******* 'All I Wanted to Do Was Beat Him Up and Rob Him' ******* Asked directly whether he targeted and attacked Shepard because he was gay, McKinney told Vargas, "No. I did not. ... I would say it wasn't a hate crime. All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him." But if the attackers were just trying to rob someone to get a drug fix, why did they beat Shepard so savagely? ******* Rerucha attributes McKinney's rage and his savage beating of Shepard to his drug abuse. "The methamphetamine just fueled to this point where there was no control. It was a horrible, horrible, horrible murder. It was a murder that was once again driven by drugs," Rerucha said. ******* Dr. Rick Rawson, a professor at UCLA who has studied the link between methamphetamine and violence, tells "20/20" the drug can trigger episodes of violent behavior. ******* "In the first weeks after you've stopped using it, the kinds of triggers that can set off an episode are completely unpredictable. It can be: you say a word with the wrong inflection, you touch someone on the shoulder. It's completely unpredictable as to what will set somebody off" Rawson said. ******* "If Aaron McKinney had not become involved with methamphetamine, Matthew Shepard would be alive today," Rerucha said. ******* Did Matthew Shepard Know His Killers? ******* Another widely held belief about the case is that McKinney and Shepard had never met before their fateful encounter at the Fireside Lounge. But a number of sources tell "20/20" the two were not strangers. ******* "Everybody knew Matt Shepard was a partier just like Aaron, just like the rest of us," said Bopp. ******* In fact, Bopp said he had seen Shepard and McKinney together at parties. "Aaron was selling [drugs] and him and Matt would go off to the side and they'd come back. And Matt would be doing some meth then," he said. ******* Though they frequented the same party scene, McKinney maintains he had never met Shepard before the night of the crime and wonders why people might say he had. "I've never met him. ... Maybe they seen us somewhere in the same spot or something. I don't know," McKinney said. ******* A bartender familiar with the local drug scene, who asked to be identified only as "Jean," says she was friendly with Shepard. She also says McKinney and Shepard knew each other. ******* When she learned of the beating, she said, she recalls thinking, "It's either money or dope, yeah. He'd be the perfect target especially because Aaron knew him." ******* Another Laramie resident, Elaine Baker, says she also saw McKinney and Shepard together in a social situation. Several weeks before the murder, she spent a night on the town in Doc O'Connor's limousine with a group that included both McKinney and Shepard. ******* "In the back of the limo, there was me, Stephanie, Doc, Aaron, Matthew Shepard," she said. As word spread of the attack on Shepard, other people who knew him also suspected the drug scene might somehow be involved. ******* In fact, former Laramie police Cmdr. Dave O'Malley got a call from a friend of Shepard suggesting that. Nevertheless, O'Malley doesn't believe drug use motivated the attackers. ******* "I really don't think he was in a methamphetamine-induced rage when this happened. I don't buy it at all," O'Malley said. "I feel comfortable in my own heart that they did what they did to Matt because they [had] hatred toward him for being gay," he said. ******* Shepard's mother, Judy, also said she doesn't buy into theories that the attack was primarily driven by drugs and money rather than hatred of her son's homosexuality. ******* "I'm just not buying into that. There were a lot of things going on that night, and hate was one of them, and they murdered my son ultimately. Anything else we find out just doesn't, just doesn't change that fact," she said. ******* Did McKinney Have a Secret Sex Life? ******* O'Connor had known Aaron McKinney for years. In flush times, McKinney partied in O'Connor's limos, and, in fact, McKinney and his girlfriend lived for a while in an apartment on O'Connor's property. ******* O'Connor says he never heard McKinney express any anti-gay attitudes. In his interview with Vargas, O'Connor reveals his belief that McKinney is bisexual. "I know of an instance where he had a three-way, two guys and one gal," he said. "Because he did it with me." ******* O'Connor added, "I know he's bisexual. There ain't no doubt in my mind. He is bisexual." ******* McKinney's former girlfriend Price says she now believes that as well. "He was always into trying to talk me into having a three-way with one of his guy friends," she said. ******* In her prison interview with McKinney, Vargas asked McKinney directly whether he had had any sexual encounters with men. McKinney said no. ******* Displaying a strong aversion to homosexual sex was a tactic McKinney tried at his trial. His lawyers developed a so-called "gay panic defense," claiming homosexual abuse McKinney suffered as a child caused him to overreact to a sexual advance by Shepard and triggered the violent attack. ******* Hoping a Wyoming jury would be sympathetic to gay panic did not pay off. McKinney was found guilty and wound up with two life sentences, assuring he'll spend the rest of his life in prison, the same sentence received by his accomplice Russell Henderson. ******* "It's really hard for me to talk to Russ," McKinney said. "To see him in this situation, knowing that I'm the one that put him here." ******* But Henderson said he realizes he bears responsibility for Shepard's death. ******* "For a long time I thought that his death wasn't my fault. And then, as time has gone on, I got a better understanding to know that I could have prevented it and I could have stopped it, but I didn't. Matthew died because I didn't stop it," he said. ******* Henderson also expresses regret and remorse for his actions that night. "I'm sorry to the Shepard family. They've had the hardest of all this. I'm sorry to the nation as a whole because this affected a lot of people and I wish every day I could change or fix it," he said. ******* Matthew Shepard's Death Led to Enormous Changes ******* Shepard's story has been told in documentaries, television movies, and a play called "The Laramie Project." The drama is often used in schools, as a lesson in the insidious workings of hate and prejudice, and has become one of the most produced theater pieces in America. There was also a small screen version of the drama on HBO. Shepard's mother has created The Matthew Shepard Foundation, dedicated to promoting tolerance and diversity, lobbying for hate-crime legislation, and assuring Matthew's legacy will be a positive one. ******* Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures ********************************************************************************************************

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Who are your true friends: those who tell you what you want to hear or those who tell you what they really think? ***************************************************************** The following warning is a prophetic message given to me (Frank Wagner) in November of 1974. ******* LISTEN TO THE CRY OF THE ABORTED CHILDREN. THEIR CRY IS NO. THEIR CRY IS A CRY OF TERROR. HEED THEIR CRY. ******* This prophecy is now being fulfilled. ******* For details about the source, meaning and fulfillment of this prophetic message go to ******* http://www.oocities.org/abortedchildren/index.html ***************************************************************** Check out some of my other sites: ******* http://www.oocities.org/fwagner12/index.html (Vancouver Youth Alliance) ******* http://www.oocities.org/fwagner6/index.htm (Vancouver ex-gay alternatives club) ***************************************************************** email me (Frank Wagner) at friendsofexgays@yahoo.ca