It has been 20 years since the gruesome murder of Matthew Shepherd. Shepherd was a young gay man and the violence surrounding his death led to the creation of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. It is an American Act of Congress, passed on October 22, 2009, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009.
Controversy came to this case in the form of a challenge as to whether it was in fact a hate crime. The claim is that one of the men accused of the murder previously had sex with Matthew. Drugs and theft were also given as the reasons why the death of Matthew Shepherd should not be considered a crime of hate.
I had to dig a bit to understand all of the twisted thinking regarding this case. After a bit of reflection and reading about the case, the statements made by the killers and the reasons given to dismiss this as a crime of hate, I have come to this: people wanting to dismiss Matthews murder as a hate crime are willing to ignore the obvious. And what is the obvious? Self-loathing is the darkest form of hate. It leads people to do all sorts of horrific acts. And while the secondary drug and robbery issues may be credible, they are symptoms, not answers.
Self – hatred born of society’s judgment of good versus bad, the demand for strict adherence to gender, the hierarchical construct of hyper masculinity and the acceptance of violence are not new.
It was witnessed in the early rise of Nazi Germany and the acceptance of an openly known homosexual leader, Ernst Rohm. Rohm was instrumental in the early rise of Hitler; some have even suggested sexual relations between the two. Hitler’s early discussions regarding homosexuality were to ignore it or to consider it the outcome of “raucous warriors”. But as the purification of the Aryan nation took a stronger hold, Hitler began the “cleansing” of anyone deemed to have imperfect character. Rohm was the most prominent homosexual and highest-ranking Nazi official to be killed during the Night of the Long Knife, June 30 – July 2, 1934, at Hitler’s request.
Closer to home we have Roy Cohen, a lawyer who worked for Joe McCarthy, Ronald Reagan and eventually Donald J. Trump, to have a closer look at self loathing which manifests in harming others. Cohn was instrumental in targeting many government officials and cultural icons for suspected Communist ties, and also for alleged homosexuality.
In a 2008 article published in The New Yorker magazine, Roger Stone (who worked closely with Cohen during Reagan’s presidential run) was quoted as saying: “Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around. It just wasn’t discussed. He was interested in power and access.”
Roy Cohn died in 1986, of complications from AIDS, at the age of 59. He never admitted he had the disease.
So when you tell me the young men who savagely killed the well-known gay man were not consumed by hate, I think there is plenty of historical evidence to the contrary.
Self-loathing is the darkest form of hate. It leads people to injustice and to murder. We would be wise to not ignore it. We would be wise to not encourage the mindset that breeds it.
let kindness win 