By Reverend Rubicon
The horrible brutal murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in 1998 sent shockwaves throughout the country.
Immediately, the media pounced on the angle that “hate crimes” against minorities and homosexuals was an epidemic sweeping the nation.
The Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990 defines a hate crime as one motivated by bias against a particular race, religion, ethnicity/origin, disability or sexual orientation.
According to the FBI’s Hate Crimes Statistics Report for 1999, 17 of the 12,658 murders that year were “hate crimes,” including three that were attributed to “sexual orientation bias.”
A tragedy? Yes.
An epidemic? Hardly.
The off-Broadway play, The Laramie Project, which depicted the cirucumstances surrounding the murder of Shepard, eventually made its way to the stage at Midwestern State University in March 2004.
The production stirred up many conversations about tolerance, diversity, and the acceptance of other lifestyles.
This September, the MSU Theatre Department will bring to the stage, The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, in a effort to once again bring “awareness” of “hate crimes.”
According to the play’s synopsis, the original theatre company “revisited Laramie, Wyoming, to create a sequel examining how attitudes and feelings may or may not have changed.”
I plan on attending the sequel in the hopes that it does indeed promote the types of discussions that it aims to do.
Chances are, however, as was the case seven years ago, the circumstances of another “hate crime” victim, Daphne Sulk, will never be a topic for discussion.
Daphne was only 15 years old when she was stabbed 17 times by her boyfriend, 28-year-old Kevin Robinson, and left to bleed to death.
Her pregnant, frozen body was discovered 11 days later in the snow covered hills of
–wait for it–
Laramie, Wyoming.
This was less than a year before the world would know about Matthew Shepard.
Robinson confessed that he killed Daphne because she wouldn’t have an abortion.
Depsite the numerous stories about anti-abortion Christian zealots who threaten or even kill abortion doctors, the story of this pro-abortion rapist and cold-blooded killer somehow skipped the newswires.
There were no pro-choice activists taking the airwaves in disgust over Daphne’s murder.
Could it be that Daphne’s “choice” failed to meet their ideological definition?
Can you imagine if Robinson killed Daphne because she chose to have an abortion instead?
That’s a “hate crime” you most certainly would have heard about.
For Daphne, there was no off-Broadway play or sequel, no national discussion, no magazine feature and, of course, no outcry for tolerance for pro-life teens impregnated by their adult boyfriends.
There was also no demand for “sensitivity training” or “multi-cultural seminars” to assist college students in becoming “aware” of the likes of Kevin Robinson.
Why is that?
What happened to Daphne was not a “hate crime.”
After all, she was a member of the “oppressor” class and could not, therefore, be a victim of hate.
Hate crimes legislation, by its very nature, creates victim groups and sends the message that one life is more valuable than another.
Instead of helping to create a color and class blind society, it creates a separist and racist message.
That message is this:
“Be careful minorities and homosexuals.The dangerous white heterosexual male is lurking in the shadows, waiting for the chance to do you bodily harm because he hates you. They are unable to control their hate and their innate longing to rid the world of those unlike themselves. In order to protect you from these barbarians, their violent acts shall now be referred to as ‘hate crimes,’ unless their crimes are committed against one of their fellow whites.
In that case, it’s just a bummer.”
Ask yourself: When was the last time the dreaded white heterosexal male was a victim of a “hate crime?”
Better yet, explain to Daphne’s mother that her daughter was not a victim of hate.
Of course, the underlying question here is, “Should the severity of a crime be linked at all to the victim’s sexual preference, or, for that matter, by the color of his or her skin?”
If this is to be the litmus test for determining what is and what is not a “hate crime,” then what is to be said about the fact that, according to the Department of Justice, 85 percent of interracial violent crimes that occur involve blacks committing violent acts against whites?
The murderers of Matthew Shepard were sentenced to life in prison without parole while Kevin Robinson was sentenced to just over 20 years.
Which crime was worse?
Or, more succinctly, which crime was more “hateful?”
Now, if Daphne would have only been a lesbian…
Jamie • Feb 17, 2013 at 11:56 PM
Daphne’s killer was 38 at the time, not 28. Also, he never confessed to the crime. Get your facts straight or shut up.