The Myth of Matthew Shepard

“The trial itself offered few surprises, yet it left many pieces of the puzzle missing- notably the story of how Matthew had become trapped in an underworld where Aaron was first his friend and occasional sex partner, then his competitor and adversary, and finally this killer”. 

– The Book of Matt

In 2016, Omar Mateen savagely murdered nearly 50 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  While the attack was in process, Mateen contacted police and gave his verbal manifesto, calling for America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq.  Angry with America's foreign policy abroad, Mateen wanted to get the attention of the people.  But it would take four months before the transcripts were released to the public.  In the meantime, four days following the massacre, President Obama walked to the microphone and described the event as an attack on LGBT rights.  A deliberate lie. 

In Stephen Jimenez's 2020 book, “The Book of Matt,” Jimenez tells the true story of the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard in 1998.  Dispelling the false narrative that a couple of rednecks killed an innocent gay man for being gay, Jimenez uncovers the facts of Matthew Shepard's life as a meth dealer, meth addict, and longtime sex partner of the man who would eventually kill him.   Instead, an epidemic of drug abuse among gay men in Utah led that night to a botched robbery, the chief motive of the murder. 

Like the Pulse nightclub, dozens of vigils and demonstrations broke out around the country.  Matthew’s ashes would be interred at the Washington National Cathedral in DC, a spiritual home for the nation, where people would come to honor his legacy.  The Matthew Shepard Foundation was created to focus on equality and acceptance, even though neither was an issue in Matthew’s death. 

This irony would be lost for years regarding the Matthew Shepard case.  There was no hate crime associated with the attack.  Matthew Shepard and his murderer, Aaron McKinney, had a sex for drugs relationship for years.  The police, the lawyers, and the accused all participated in the cover-up of the underlying drug activity to protect many people, even fabricating the story that Matthew made an unwanted sexual advance on his attackers.  Claims that all would eventually be retracted. 

In 2009, President Obama signed a Hate Crimes Bill into law named for Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr., both brutally murdered in 1998.  The bill expanded an earlier 1969 federal hate crime law to include crimes motivated by gender identity and sexual orientation, where crimes committed with a bias towards a protected class would seemingly receive extra punishment.  Hate crime bills are problematic for several reasons.  Since the constitution does not impose special conditions for certain groups, the law should be the same.  Like hate speech, hate crime laws are arbitrary, subjective, are applied inconsistently, and do nothing to stop their continuation. 

The best-kept secret of the Matthew Shepard murder was that Matt and his killer were well-known acquaintances and friends.  That friendship would sour over money woes and paranoia from fears of outstanding debts.  Matthew's murder was indeed brutal.  He was pistol-whipped, suffering a crushed skull, tied to a fence, and left to die.  Yet, despite the lack of a hate crime, Matthew’s murderer and accomplice would each be imprisoned for two life terms, on felony murder and kidnapping, after both accepted plea deals to avoid a potential death sentence. 

Activists sought to turn Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder into a tale of homophobia run amok, to paint a narrative of Red America as bigoted and racist to help the Democrats increase fundraising.  To turn the adversity of his death into their advantage, they sterilized the reputation of Matthew Shepard and made him a necessary saint.  A similar tale would be told about George Floyd beginning in 2020. 

But Matthew Shepard was not a martyr; he was a willing participant in the illegal activity that led to his unfortunate death.  Like all good crises, the myth served its purpose until the truth was revealed.