Here's the transcript:
Congresswoman Virginia Foxx:
"I also would like to point out that there was a bill -- the hate crimes bill that's called the Matthew Shepard bill is named after a very unfortunate incident that happened where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. This -- the bill was named for him, hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's really a hoax that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills,
No, Congresswoman. You're wrong.
The New York Times reported in 1998: "According to the local police and prosecutors, the two men lured Mr. Shepard out of a bar by saying they were gay. Then, the Laramie police say, the pair kidnapped Mr. Shepard, pistol-whipped him with a .357 Magnum, and left him tied to a ranch fence for 18 hours until a passing bicyclist spotted Mr. Shepard, who was unconscious."
Matthew Shepard died on October 12, 1998 Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. He was 21.
He wasn't killed in the commitment of a robbery. He died because he was gay.
You've really hat a lot of nerve to say something like this, Congresswoman Foxx. You need to apologize for the Shepard family your insensitive remarks about their son.
Arleen Specter made the right choice in leaving you freaks in the GOP.
3 comments:
Republican: The Facts Optional Party!
ABC agrees with her. If the perpetrators were motivated by his sexual preference, why did they rob and pistol whip 2 other straight men later that night?
What happened to Matthew was certainly tragic. It was not a 'hate' crime. It was two slimeballs robbing and beating 3 men, one who happened to be gay.
Every time these second-string GOP representatives speak out of their backsides on the issues - following I-have-no-clue Bachmann's stellar lead in this respect - they just drag their party down further into the depths of marginalization. By all means let's point fingers and laugh and ridicule as appropriate, but let's not encourage them to shut up, whatever we do. Every further floor speech or press conference or cable news opinion slot they avail themselves of shears off another layer of their electoral support base, as those voters wake up and realize what idiots they've been backing these past years, and how little they truly have the public good at heart.
If they keep on at this rate, by the 2010 midterms almost nobody will be giving them the time of day, much less their votes.
So, keep talking, GOP stalwarts! Your rhetoric paves the way to your own irrelevance. Good luck with that.
PS - Anonymous Ranger, you're good at quoting your own Bill-O reinforced talking points (from a Factor interview with ABC's Vargas, oh, yeah, there's credible for ya), but at the end of the day the victim in THIS case remains DEAD. For motivations to which witnesses have testified. Whatever the perpetrators might have subsequently tried (and thankfully failed) to do to others, this is what they DID do to Shepard.
Are you seriously going to try to excuse it? Really?
It was not "two slimeballs robbing and beating 3 men, one who happened to be gay." It was two murderers torturing and leaving for dead one gay man whom they specifically targeted, who then subsequently died thanks to their fun and games.
Have you no freaking compassion, you soulless imbecile? That you'll defend murderers in this way?
That is sad and pathetic.
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