Group Members: Victoria Tronzo
Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine
Planned by one of Matt’s old childhood friends, this is the behind the famous story of Matt Shepard who was brutally beaten for being gay. His family’s side of the story has already been told, but this accounts of the tale of who Matt was to his friends. Matt Shepard became famous when he was brutally beaten and on the verge of death from a robbery gone wrong. Because Matt was gay, the assailants thought he would be an easy target, but they went too far. On October 12, 1998 Matt Shepard was attacked and after that changed the world’s views on hate crimes. He was only 21 years old. The world only saw that he was killed in Wyoming which had the motto of “live and let live” but it …show more content…
Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed by Congress on October 22, 2009 and was signed by president Obama on October 28, 2009. Basically 10 years after Matt’s death and his parent’s founding of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, they have changed the way the nation looks at hate crimes towards sexual orientation in order to have a better understanding for court cases (The United States Department of Justice). After hate crimes based on race, sexual orientation has the highest number of hate crimes. Entering the 2000’s and 2010’s, the United States has made some extensive progress in establishing marriage equality for same sex marriage in 2015 and getting rid of the military policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (Murphy 69). However, the main concerns that LGBTQQI people still face include employment discrimination where they are treated differently or harassed because they are different, they face the risk of poverty, and they are given inadequate health care (Scaccia). As the Matthew Shepard Foundation have made it their mission to erase hate, they also give statistics and reports of hate crimes from 2014 and 2015. Surprisingly, North Carolina went from 140 reported crime incidents to 161. But everything is relative as California had 759 in 2014 and 837 in 2015 Matthew Shepard Foundation). This difference can be attributed to a multitude of different factors such as bigger city populations with more LGBT people living there, but just because …show more content…
This is a quote I learned from the movie That’s What I Am where a teacher helps a student learn how to see the best in people and not to judge someone based on their appearance or other perceptions from others. Even though I saw this movie years ago, I find this quote is useful when looking at these movements as the people who are fighting for their rights just want peace through human dignity and compassion. Victoria and I agreed that the events that happened to Matt Shepard were horrible and the fact that Aaron McKinney was so cocky and smiled when he was at court made us so angry because he pleaded the gay panic defense which is an act of violence from temporary insanity due to a homosexual panic (Mince-Didier). I was utterly outraged at this defense, which is still in practice today, and that does not make murder okay because Aaron didn’t like Matt. But as Father Roger Schmit told Michele, “there’s a right kind of hurt that we need to embrace” and as we look forward to the future, the pain caused by Matt Shepard’s death has brought the much needed change to policies and the definition of hate crime. I have a personal involvement in the matter as I worry about my brother sometimes as he wants to live his life happily, but there are certain instances where he is restricted and I want to help him have the same rights that I
Matt Shepard is a Friend of Mine
Planned by one of Matt’s old childhood friends, this is the behind the famous story of Matt Shepard who was brutally beaten for being gay. His family’s side of the story has already been told, but this accounts of the tale of who Matt was to his friends. Matt Shepard became famous when he was brutally beaten and on the verge of death from a robbery gone wrong. Because Matt was gay, the assailants thought he would be an easy target, but they went too far. On October 12, 1998 Matt Shepard was attacked and after that changed the world’s views on hate crimes. He was only 21 years old. The world only saw that he was killed in Wyoming which had the motto of “live and let live” but it …show more content…
Hate Crimes Prevention Act was passed by Congress on October 22, 2009 and was signed by president Obama on October 28, 2009. Basically 10 years after Matt’s death and his parent’s founding of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, they have changed the way the nation looks at hate crimes towards sexual orientation in order to have a better understanding for court cases (The United States Department of Justice). After hate crimes based on race, sexual orientation has the highest number of hate crimes. Entering the 2000’s and 2010’s, the United States has made some extensive progress in establishing marriage equality for same sex marriage in 2015 and getting rid of the military policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (Murphy 69). However, the main concerns that LGBTQQI people still face include employment discrimination where they are treated differently or harassed because they are different, they face the risk of poverty, and they are given inadequate health care (Scaccia). As the Matthew Shepard Foundation have made it their mission to erase hate, they also give statistics and reports of hate crimes from 2014 and 2015. Surprisingly, North Carolina went from 140 reported crime incidents to 161. But everything is relative as California had 759 in 2014 and 837 in 2015 Matthew Shepard Foundation). This difference can be attributed to a multitude of different factors such as bigger city populations with more LGBT people living there, but just because …show more content…
This is a quote I learned from the movie That’s What I Am where a teacher helps a student learn how to see the best in people and not to judge someone based on their appearance or other perceptions from others. Even though I saw this movie years ago, I find this quote is useful when looking at these movements as the people who are fighting for their rights just want peace through human dignity and compassion. Victoria and I agreed that the events that happened to Matt Shepard were horrible and the fact that Aaron McKinney was so cocky and smiled when he was at court made us so angry because he pleaded the gay panic defense which is an act of violence from temporary insanity due to a homosexual panic (Mince-Didier). I was utterly outraged at this defense, which is still in practice today, and that does not make murder okay because Aaron didn’t like Matt. But as Father Roger Schmit told Michele, “there’s a right kind of hurt that we need to embrace” and as we look forward to the future, the pain caused by Matt Shepard’s death has brought the much needed change to policies and the definition of hate crime. I have a personal involvement in the matter as I worry about my brother sometimes as he wants to live his life happily, but there are certain instances where he is restricted and I want to help him have the same rights that I