I think you have missed the really huge difference, the one factor that truly made Matthew’s murder stand out.

Bear in mind, that there had been, and continue to be many white, young, attractive, gay men who get killed, often brutally, and their stories didn’t get as much attention either, as well as people of color, women, and transgendered people who are bashed. I know of a couple of victims just as telegenic as Matthew Shepherd, just as “mainstream”, whose deaths were ignored.

There was one factor that was novel, new, unique, and exactly on time.

For the first time, America noticed the parents. Matthew’s parents were on tv, expressing their love, their pain, and most of all – they accepted Matthew as he was. That was new. That was different.

And it came at a time when society was just starting to realize that GLBTQ people actually had parents, and that some of those parents actually loved them. PFLAG had been around for awhile, but it was finally being acknowledged in the mainstream culture.

Suddenly, instead of some nameless adult telling the camera about his dead “friend”, Americans saw a mom and a dad grieving for their gay son. It dramatically reframed the issue. Fag-bashing wasn’t something that only happened to anonymous men in dark alleys, it was something that happened to someone’s kid, grown up kid yeah, but still, someone’s kid.

Americans finally saw what we all knew – GLBTQ people come from families, there are families who love us and grieve when we are murdered.

And frankly, for a lot of GLBTQ people at the time, it was a first as well; the first time we saw parents, the peers of our parents, grieving the death of their gay son.

That is a meaningful insight, but, one that reflects not on the audience, but on the author.

However, it is clear that here, at least, the issue is not that people do not understand what you have written. People do not agree with you. Understand and agree are two very different concepts, and presuming that lack of agreement indicates lack of understanding, is wrong at best. The premise you have put forth doesn’t match people’s experiences or understanding of this issue.

The use of inaccurate or misleading expressions, like “I know Shepard has become a religion” detracts significantly from your text’s ability to persuade and convince. The red herring about race becomes simply another distraction weakening the piece.

Having read your attempts at clarification, I find your point even more muddled than before. You said:
“All people are complicated: I can handle that, but maybe the public can’t.”

But, your disparaging ‘maybe’, and your premise, reduces ‘the public’ and its response to every aspect of this issue, not just the iconization of Matthew Shepherd, to a gross over-simplification. His murder resonated for all kinds of reasons, including when it occurred, its location, the horrific brutality of it, his parents devotion, but your argument reduces everyone’s response to one factor – his skin color.

That is neither fair, nor accurate. Really, your premise does not account for, much less “handle” how complicated people are.

You wrote:”As far as the commentary being “simple”: the gay rights movement has finite financial and organizational resources, so in fact one does have to choose where to allocate them. It is of course possible to fight for “A and B,” but whatever resources are allocated to one cannot be allocated to the other. And my broader point is that I don’t think hate crimes legislation are worth fighting for at all.”

The fatal flaw here is the zero sum nature of your perception of these different goals – in the sense that your premise hangs on the assumption that advances in one area, like hate crimes, do not contribute to, but actually take away from, advances in other goals.

That is false. Each of these goals – ENDA, hate crimes, same-sex marriage, address specific expressions of the same ugly social illness, the same prejudice. Hate crimes laws send the message ‘prejudice is not an excuse’, and bear in mind, hate crimes laws already apply to people of color, one might conclude that you only oppose broadening those laws to include GLBTQ people. Equal employment laws send a parallel message ‘prejudice is not an excuse’ regarding employment practices. Each advance in any arena strengthens the others, because each advance, in hate crimes laws, employment, marriage, etc. sends the same core message “prejudice is not an excuse”.

Something else to consider as well – advances in the civil liberties for one minority contribute to advances in the civil liberties for others, and, advances in prejudice against one minority, bolster prejudice against other minorities. Clergy of color, for example, who teach homophobia are simultaneously encouraging racism, because bigots of any kind recognize that all prejudice is the same emotion, only the target changes.

By the way, where is the evidence for your assertion about people worshiping Matthew Shepherd? You made an “I know” statement, and I for one would like to see the evidence to back it up.

And again, who is this “we” you seem to think exists. Allocate? Allocate? By whom? The same sex couple raising children? The single gay person working in a state with no job protections? The gay kid getting the crap beaten out of them in a state where justice tends to look the other way at anti-gay violence? The money goes where the people spending the money want it to go.

And that’s okay. Winning equality isn’t a matter of tipping over dominoes one after another in a certain order. it is not a single front war. We put all our eggs in one basket, that makes our struggle a smaller target for our oppressors.

And my broader point is that I don’t think hate crimes legislation are worth fighting for at all.

Would this explain your apparent disdain for all the attention Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder has gotten? Your assertion that those of us who think its worth remembering are deifying him?

Yes, it’s inconvenient when something like that gets so much attention when you want that attention directed elsewhere. Some of us would rather not see the case for same-sex marriage go before the Supreme Court just quite now either. But as I said, history set its own course. The rabble has a way of ignoring both the self appointed generals and the haters. And that’s why the rabble is eventually going to win this.

One thing that struck me reading the histories of the Stonewall Riots, was how so many older, more established gay people stood on the sidelines and were angry with the street kids and drag queens who were rioting those nights. Give us all a bad name they said, from the safety of their well established closets. But that night, a bunch of poor young outcasts had had enough. And it changed the game. Had they listened to the wiser, more tactical and strategic council of their elders who knows how much further away equality would be, then it is now.

There is no Gay Agenda in the sense that the bigots say. There are a lot of gay folk out there who are tired, very very tired, of being stepped on. And they’re not listening anymore to the people who say they should just put up with it. I don’t think you can get them to march together in lock-step. And if you could, it wouldn’t be wise.

I guess every movement needs a concrete symbol/martyr to hang the cause on. Unfortunately Mathew Shepard happened to be have an image that was sell-able to a mass audience. He was white, appeared to be non-flamboyant (from pics), college student, clean-cut and seemed upper middle class. So technically he could’ve been anyone’s child.

Maybe that’s why Mathew became such an icon. I believe that our community realized that here was an opportunity to present someone who couldn’t be blamed for the attack (even though it was tried).

I certainly don’t agree with it, but I understand why it comes to be.

No one should be killed because of who they are and to me, those deaths are all important–and shouldn’t be elevated with one over the other–even if they aren’t gay related like James Bryd, Jr. who was dragged to death in 1998 because of his skin color.

Unfortunately, the news media will only pick up on stories they feel are “news” worthy and that further creates an aura about the victim.

But the Internet, blogs and sites like Box Turtle Bulletin are changing the focus. And people like yourself and others are raising those very questions, which brings up the conversation.

By talking about it we can create awareness and with awareness, we can create change.

I have yet to see any solid evidence that having hate-crimes legislation (HCL) on the books has any significant effect on the rate of hate crimes. I do think that HCL are something we should work towards, but if our goal is to help and protect LGBT people (as it should be), then ENDA would be more practical.

He was small, obviously not very strong, and didn’t represent much of a threat to anyone. The fact that he was crucified on a fence and left freezing in the now was a picture that could resonate in many people’s mind. Because he struck a cord with straight Americans, gay folks are of course going to use him to illustrate the horrors of anti-gay violence.

Emmitt Till, Anne Frank and Matthew Shepard had something in common. Two of them were children, and though Shepard was an adult, he wasn’t much bigger than the average 8th grade boy. These young people who didn’t represent any real threat to anyone were brutally killed because they were black, Jewish or gay.

Incidentally, Emmitt Till’s original coffin is going to the Smithsonian, according to a report I heard last week on NPR.

You hit the nail on the head the first time around: he’s an icon. Like Madonna, Jesus, Anne Frank, Joe The Plumber, Paris Hilton, and even Rosa Parks.

You mention an icon, it’s social shorthand. A way of talking about something without having to give the whole story again.

Just because Jesus and Matthew Shepard are both icons doesn’t mean that Matthew shares JC’s religious significance. Matthew Shepard is no more a religious figure than Joe My God.

I think the “diety” status almost seems like a backhanded compliment. Much how the Right likes to say that Obama is our “messiah” —- when no one on the left actually ever called him that or even suggested we worship him in any way shape or form. Pelosi said something along the lines of him being a blessing or gift — hardly the same as a messiah. I’ve gotten lots of gifts over the years, and I have yet to find myself praying to a Best Buy Gift Card even the fancier ones.

Really, Matthew Shepard has more in common with Mark Bingham, one the 9/11 victims who fought back. There isn’t a religious wrapper around either of them, but there is a sense of respect and solemnity because both were victims of horrible tragedies.