Hate Crime legislation is one of the most insidious legal monsters ever to have been created by the State, and the Mathew Shepard case is the most notorious. A person who is murdered out of spite, revenge, or just for the fun of it should receive the same weight of justice as someone who is murdered because of what the murderer was thinking at the time.

Human life should not be weighted in terms of some manufactured social evil. A black person most likely will not be charged with a hate crime for killing a white person. A homosexual most likely will not be charged with a hate crime for killing a heterosexual. Murder is murder, no matter what the motive.

Dan Savage can verbally attack people who speak out against same-sex sexuality and he will never be cited for “hate speech.” Try saying no to making a cake for a so-called “lesbian wedding” in a state that has enacted special status for people who engage in a certain type of sexual activity.

Much of the legislative action on so-called “hate crimes” came by way of the Matthew Shepard murder. In October 1998 Shepard “was tortured, killed, and left hanging grotesquely from a fence. He was discovered almost a day later and later died in the hospital from his horrific wounds.” A murder is a murder.

Immediately the homosexual community turned the story into a cause célèbre to push for “hate crime” legislation.

This isn’t the first time a false narrative has been created to push a liberal cause. The same process was evident in the 1973 pro-abortion decision. Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” in the Roe v. Wade case, “describes herself as having been relatively ignorant of the facts of her own case, and claims that her attorneys simply used her for their own predetermined ends. They ‘were looking for somebody, anybody, to use to further their own agenda. I was their most willing dupe.’”

A new blockbuster book has been published that claims that Matthew Shepard had been murdered by his “gay lover.” There’s no political capital to be gained by such a story, so a more useable political narrative had to be created:

“According to The Advocate, one of the premier gay publications in the country, [Stephen] Jiminez ‘amassed enough anecdotal evidence to build a persuasive case that Shepard’s sexuality was, if not incidental, certain[ly] 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. . .”

So what’s the real story? According to Jiminez, the author of The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard, “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.”

As expected, the homosexual community is denouncing the book. But they have a problem. The author of The Book of Matt is himself a homosexual. Will any of this revelation change liberal lies to advance a “Progressive” agenda? Don’t count on it.

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”