The Book Of Matt: Matthew Shepard, the Real Story?

archer wrote:

PrintSmith wrote: So what you are in essence saying home is that yes, the ends justify any and all means used to achieve them. The benefit to the society in the advancement of homosexual rights, and the side benefi.com.t of attacking the religious beliefs of a substantial segment of the Union's inhabitants, trumps accurately portraying Shephard's murder for what it was. That is what archer is trying to tell us here when she attempts to deflect from creating a fairy tale surrounding a brutal murder to point to the good that resulted from deliberately suppressing the truth in favor of repeating a lie often enough that it took on the veil of truth.

That post is so full of inaccuracies it's laughable. How nice of you first to tell home what she/he is in essence saying, then claim to know what I am trying to tell you. Speak for yourself PrintSmith, not for me.....

You are the one who said the accuracy of the reporting was less important than the dialog the false reporting resulted in archer. You did say that, didn't you? Why yes, I believe you did . . .

archer wrote: If it was not exactly as depicted by the media at the time...that is less important than the dialog it started about the struggles of gays in our society.

The problem gets to be that the reporting on the murder was manufactured for the purposes of starting that dialog. Shephard, according to the author of the book, was murdered not by strangers, not by anti-gay Christians, but by someone whom he had had sex with and someone that he did drugs with. He wasn't murdered because he was a homosexual in a rural, backwards section of the Union, his murder was the result of the drug culture that he had immersed himself in. That's not even close to what was reported at the time. But that is less important than the dialog the falsified story started according to you, right? Never mind that reporting the story accurately might have started another, perhaps as or more important, dialog about drugs, drug culture, and meth use. The dialog that the left and the media wanted to have was the dialog about his homosexuality so they collectively manufactured a fairy tale and repeated that fairy tale over and over to ensure that the dialog they wanted to start was the dialog that resulted.

And what does this tell us about these same players and the dialog that they want to have about guns and the ubiquitous "gun violence" problem? Or the dialog that they want to have about minimum wage? Or the one that they want to have about the (un)Affordable Care Act? How about the dialog they want to have about individual welfare programs? Is another such fabrication underway on any or all of these subjects that we are only going to uncover 15 years from now? A fair question to ask given what they have done in the past, is it not?

homeagain wrote: MY intent was to both applaud and acknowledge the amount of courage that it took to bring
this front and center and to CREATE A DIALOGUE.....where, before Shepard. there was NO
platform to do so......the details that have been brought forward in the book/piece are Unsettling and create ANOTHER dialogue about media manipulation......(which is so pervasive in our everyday living experience.)......MEDIA MANIPULATION in ALL forms that do nothing to truly
educate/inform us (collectively) so that we can make the BEST POSSIBLE choices......

I agree with you that the malfeasance undertaken by the media and the left to concoct the dialog they wanted to have on homosexuality did nothing to educate/inform us in any manner that might assist in the making of the best possible decision about the role homosexuals have in our society home. But, then again, I don't believe that this was the purpose for concocting the story either.

No, the purpose for fabricating the story as they did had more to do with divide and conquer than it did with starting a dialog that would ultimately lead to the best possible decision about how to put an end to the discrimination that the homosexual community had to live with as members of the society. That, of course, is my opinion on the subject, and it is also the opinion I have as to their current conduct in these other social realms that were mentioned earlier.

PrintSmith wrote:

homeagain wrote: MY intent was to both applaud and acknowledge the amount of courage that it took to bring
this front and center and to CREATE A DIALOGUE.....where, before Shepard. there was NO
platform to do so......the details that have been brought forward in the book/piece are Unsettling and create ANOTHER dialogue about media manipulation......(which is so pervasive in our everyday living experience.)......MEDIA MANIPULATION in ALL forms that do nothing to truly
educate/inform us (collectively) so that we can make the BEST POSSIBLE choices......

I agree with you that the malfeasance undertaken by the media and the left to concoct the dialog they wanted to have on homosexuality did nothing to educate/inform us in any manner that might assist in the making of the best possible decision about the role homosexuals have in our society home. But, then again, I don't believe that this was the purpose for concocting the story either.

No, the purpose for fabricating the story as they did had more to do with divide and conquer than it did with starting a dialog that would ultimately lead to the best possible decision about how to put an end to the discrimination that the homosexual community had to live with as members of the society. That, of course, is my opinion on the subject, and it is also the opinion I have as to their current conduct in these other social realms that were mentioned earlier.

I feel the same way PS. It's just like these shooting stories where the "journalists" hope the situation fits into their desired narative... hopefully he's some right winger, hopefully he used an assault rifle, hopefully the shooter is a white male etc. But without true confirmation, they throw out false information and what ifs thinking they already know the truth.

Peter Boyles on 710KNUS this morning has been reading the book and it looks likes the book is well sourced and has Denver ties where the HIV positive Matthew Shepard work as a gay prostitute alongside his convicted killer.
Interesting fact: The killers were never convicted of a hate crime and part of their deal to avoid death was they weren't allowed to tell their side of the story. Why won't they let the killers talk?