Salt Lake City Man Calls Judy Shepard a Liar to her Face

[ccharles000]

This evening, Judy Shepard addressed a near capacity crowd in the auditorium at Salt Lake's Main Library.

I've seen Judy Shepard speak before and she struck me then and again this evening as a very down to earth person who is speaking from the heart. She began her statement with a quick recap of why she wrote her book The Meaning of Matthew. She said something interesting - in the family Matthew was know as Matt. Only to the world outside the family is he Matthew. After about 5 to 10 minutes, she opened the floor to questions.

About 45 minutes in, a man rose and asked a question that amounted to repeating a current popular right-wing lie - Matthew Shepard was killed because his killers were high and wanted to rob him; his sexual orientation was irrelevant. Mrs. Shepard refuted the claim - pointing out that in one of the killer's confessions, he admitted they acted because of Shepard's sexual orientation; the other, in his statement in court, admitted the same. Neither men tested positive for drugs or alcohol after Matthew's murder. The interlocutor asserted at this point that she was lying and doing a disservice to history by lying about the reasons for her son's murder. To my eyes, Judy Shepard appeared visibly upset by the man's accusations. He claimed to be relying on a report from 20/20; she pointed out that the 20/20 actually ignored the evidence and testimony of both men. She did not deny the men had a history of drug abuse. She pointed out the facts; the man refused to accept them.

It's not just a lack of civility; the man asking the questions was posing as a daring advocate of truth who was trying to set the record straight. He asserted that Judy Shepard is and has deliberately distorting what happened to her son in service of a political agenda. It's a typical right wing pose these days - repeat lies with passion as if you are somehow the only person who knows the truth. Let me be blunt: this man's motives may not have been malicious but his actions were.

http://www.pamshouseblend.com/diary/13211/salt-lake-city-man-calls-judy-shepard-a-liar-to-her-face

[sinkingfeeling]

1. And no one in the audience spoke up against this man? For shame!

[izquierdista]

6. Civilization and decorum

No one in the audience spoke up against Joe Wilson either. The fact that he was allowed to rant his lies reflects well on the audience -- it wasn't full of dumbshit teabaggers who feel every sentence has to be annotated in real time with their opinions and catcalls.

There is becoming a theme with poorly educated right-wingers: a mother describing the most tragic events in her life paired off against a genius who watches 20/20. Just like Imhofe squaring off against hundreds of climatologists with advanced degrees in meteorology. As long as there is free speech, the stupid and ignorant will claim equal time with the experienced and educated.

[sinkingfeeling]

7. I would have expected the very next speaker to have refuted the 20/20 guy's revisionist

telling of the tale.

[sui generis]

2. You LIE!1!!!

Isn't that the truth.

The whole lying liars who lie thing is so . . . . conservative talking point. They've seized on being an arbiter of "the truth" the same way a priest seizes on being the mouthpiece of god. It's pathological. And yes, malicious.

The uncomfortable truth is it really wasn't about the "sex" part. It was about the perception of weakness associated with a gay male. His killers weren't thinking about killing teH Gay in their own dark psyches; they were just out to cut something weak from the herd and kill it.

I don't know that predation requires a label other than inhuman, but clearly one of the factors they considered was whether or not this little kid would fight back, and the idea of his gayness WAS a factor.

The result was the same. A kid ended up dead for being targeted as vulnerable. And two monsters ended up exposed for what they were, all other labels aside.

[YOY]

3. Even if she was lying...and she's not.

Is this assclown under the delusion that nobody is ever murdered for being gay?

Wow...the powers of delusion.

[annabanana]

4. The sheer meanness, the brutality of this man's accusations

against a grieving mother is breathtaking. He should have been shouted down and shamed.

[Froward69]

5. revisionist fucks...

the only "facts" they believe are the ones they make up.