GOP Rep.: Notion that Matthew Shepard murder was hate crime ‘a hoax’

[babsbunny]

http://rawstory.com/08/blog/2009/04/29/gop-rep-notion-that-matthew-shepard-murder-was-hate-crime-a-hoax/

By Jeremy Gantz

Published: April 29, 2009
Updated 2 hours ago


Less than one month after she used the term “tar baby” on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) has managed to offend another group of Americans: gay people.

Speaking on the House floor Wednesday while a hate crimes bill – known as the “Matthew Shepard bill,” after the gay 21-year-old who was brutally murdered in 1998 – was being debated, Foxx called the University of Wyoming student’s association with the legislation “a hoax” because, she said, Shepard was not killed because of his sexual orientation.

[skooooo]

1. She ought to be run out of town for saying that. nt

[Sebastian Doyle]

2. What fucking planet does she live on?

And when are she and Bachmann going back?

[valerief]

3. Her name suits her. nt

[eleny]

4. Olbermann has been talking about this on his show tonight...

And will be covering it more after the break.

[trumad]

5. Pure hatred

In court the defendants used varying rationales to defend their actions. They attempted to use the "gay panic defense", arguing that they were driven to temporary insanity by alleged sexual advances by Shepard. At another point they stated that they had only wanted to rob Shepard and never intended to kill him.<3>

The prosecutor in the case charged that McKinney and Henderson pretended to be gay in order to gain Shepard's trust to rob him.<11> During the trial, Chastity Pasley and Kristen Price (the pair's then-girlfriends) testified under oath that Henderson and McKinney both plotted beforehand to rob a gay man. McKinney and Henderson then went to the Fireside Lounge and selected Shepard as their target. McKinney alleged that Shepard asked them for a ride home. After befriending him, they took him to a remote area of Laramie where they robbed him, beat him severely (media reports often contained the graphic account of the pistol whipping and his smashed skull), and tied him to a fence with a rope from McKinney's truck. Shepard begged for his life. Both girlfriends also testified that neither McKinney nor Henderson was under the influence of drugs at the time.<12><13> The beating was so severe that the only areas on Shepard's face that were not covered in blood were those where his tears had washed the blood stains away.<14>

Henderson pleaded guilty on April 5, 1999, and agreed to testify against McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he received two consecutive life sentences. The jury in McKinney's trial found him guilty of felony murder. As it began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.<2>

Henderson and McKinney were incarcerated in the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins but were transferred to other prisons due to overcrowding.<15>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard

[Steven_D]

6. What is it with Rethugs

and their misuse of the word "hoax." Someone really ought to give them a dictionary. Or wash out their tiny minds with soap.