Whoopsie.Gay Icon Matthew Shepard Was Actually Killed By Lover Over Meth

Another day, another Leftist narrative crumbles.

Breitbart has the story, a report on a review in the gay publication The Advocate of a new book written by well known gay author Stephen Jimenez entitled, The Book of Matt.

Ask the average American who Matthew Shepard is, and they'll tell you he was that poor homosexual who was murdered by two thugs and tied to a fence because he was gay.

The part of the story that's true is that on October 6th, 1998, Shepard met “two strangers” at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming and went off with them. The two men drove him to a remote area, robbed him, pistol whipped him to death and left him hanging on a fence.

Shepard later became a secular saint, an icon for gay rights and same sex marriage. His murder was used to lobby congress,was the subject of hundreds of speeches and fund raising appeals, and became a flag to rally around. Songs were written about him by well known pop stars, a foundation was formed in his name, a TV movie or three was made about him if memory serves me and even national hate crimes legislation named for him.

Turns out that the truth was very different.

As gay journalist Aaron Hicklin, writing in The Advocate asks, “How do people sold on one version of history react to being told that the facts are slippery --- that thinking of Shepard’s murder as a hate crime does not mean it was a hate crime? And how does it color our understanding of such a crime if the perpetrator and victim not only knew each other but also had sex together, bought drugs from one another, and partied together?”

This startling revelation comes in The Book of Matt to be published next week by investigative journalist Stephen Jiminez, who over the course of years interviewed over 100 people, including Shepard’s friends, friends of the killers, and the killers themselves.

According to The Advocate, one of the premier gay publications in the country, Jiminez “amassed enough anecdotal evidence to build a persuasive case that Shepard’s sexuality was, if not incidental, certain less central than popular consensus had lead us to believe.”

Even before Shepard died, two of his friends were peddling the narrative that he died at the hands of vicious homophobes. Within days the gay establishment latched onto what would drive the hate crimes story for years to come; even now, the Laramie Project, a stage play about the killing is performed all over the country. Indeed, it will be performed next week at Ford’s Theater in Washington DC.

But what really happened to Matthew Shepard? 

He was beaten, tortured, and killed by one or both of the men now serving life sentences. But it turns out, according to Jiminez, that Shepard was a meth dealer himself and he was friends and sex partners with the man who led in his killing. Indeed, his killer may have killed him because Shepard allegedly came into possession of a large amount of methamphetamine and refused to give it up.
The book also shows that Shepard’s killer was on a five-day meth binge at the time of the killing.

My, my. As if we've never had people fall out over drugs, or attempt to torture someone to get them to give up their stash and go a bit too far. Especially if they were under the influence.

Shapard's death was a tragedy, but the use that was made of it was obscene.

This is interesting because it's a textbook example of how the Left operates. Find a symbol, provide it with unearned moral authority, publicize it widely and push the new narrative for all it's worth. It's a variation of Saul Alinsky's Rule 13; "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." In this case, it's pick the symbol, freeze it, personalize it and use it to polarize anyone whom opposes your agenda.

Rachel Corrie was used in exactly the same way, as an icon and money maker by 'anti-Zionists', portrayed as a tender little buttercup murdered by vicious Jews instead of the hate-filled, anti-semitic terrorist groupie harridan she really was.

Aaron Hicklin, the writer of the review in The Advocate provides a cynical coda to all this that explains a lot: “There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.” 
 

The defense against this, of course, is to never believe any of the Left's horse manure when the next attempt to manipulate you comes along. Or anyone, fo that matter.It's not as if we don't understand who the legacy media is by now, or why people will peddle certain narratives because thar's gold and political capital in them thar hills.

After all, if someone you knew repeatedly lied to you, would you believe anything they had to say, ever? Start from that premise, always take a good look at who's telling you what, who's paying them and what they're ultimately trying to sell you is a good place to start.