It is so gratifying to see the U.S. House finally passing the Matthew Shepard Act. Matthew was a friend of mine before his murder. It has been a strange decade, watching his story spread around the world while remembering him as a student, interested in language and diplomacy and politics. I am confident he would have been an eager participant in the blogging world in support of progressive causes and social justice if he were still with us today.
I wasn't suprised that Rep. Virginia Foxx parroted the warped revisionist account of Matt's death first popularized in 2003 by an Elizabeth Vargas hit-job on ABC's 20/20. I and others familiar with the crime were interviewed fo that one-sided piece of garbage. During nearly two hours of taping time, I tried very hard to poke holes in the obvious slant the piece's producer, Steve Jimenez, had developed. They ended up using about 10 seconds of my out-of-context remarks to try to bolster their own case. I felt naive.
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