Rep. Foxx calls Matthew Shepard murder "a hoax"

Good Lord. Judging from the press she's getting (and the reaction she's undoubtedly getting from Republican leadership -- at least, one hopes), I'm gonna go out on a limb here and bet that she does not make this mistake again.

Just so we're all clear on the story, this is what happened to Shepard. From an AP story dated Oct. 9, 1998 (via LexisNexis):

Shepard was found Wednesday evening by a man on a bicycle who at first thought he was a scarecrow or a dummy because of how he was tied to the fence.

He was unconscious, and his skull had been smashed with a handgun. He also appeared to have suffered burns on his body and cuts on his head and face. The temperature had dropped into the low 30s during the more than 12 hours Shepard was left outside.

From Shepard's Wikipedia page:

The beating was so severe that the only areas on Shepard's face that were not covered in blood were those where his tears had washed the blood stains away.

The men had a gun and some sort of cutting implement, yet instead of a quick kill and hiding of the evidence (or, I dunno, maybe just robbing him!), they chose to torture and mutilate the kid, tie him to a fence post, and leave him to die of hypothermia. And this horrible woman wants us to believe this was not a hate crime.

You can argue against hate crimes laws without downplaying the atrocity of hate crimes themselves. You can talk about "thought crimes" or relying on individual judges in individual cases to make the right calls or whatever, but don't try to tell us that Matthew Shepard was just some dude killed for drug money. It insults our intelligence and alienates the generation of Americans who were touched by this crime (my generation, in point of fact).

the connection between violence and stupidity

In the middle of this CNN article about a Muslim who helped the 3 Jews assaulted by a phalanx of Christmas warriors on the subway:

One member of the group allegedly yelled, "Oh, Hanukkah. That's the day that the Jews killed Jesus," she said.

a hate crime committed in Indiana: where's the media?

From The Bloomington Alternative:

The simple facts in Shorty Hall's murder shout major media. Brian Williams or Katie Couric, maybe. Bill Moyers, someday. Indianapolis Star, unquestionably.

The 1998 hate-crime murder of Matthew Shepard in Wyoming is commonly invoked in comparison.

Thirty-five-year-old, 5-foot-4, 100-pound Aaron Hall was brutally beaten on April 12 for hours by two teens who have described the murder in chilling detail to police. Each says Hall precipitated the violence by making a homosexual suggestion.

The beatings included repeated pummelings with fists and boots and dragging Hall down a wooden staircase by his feet as "his head bounced down all of the steps," in one of the accused's words. He died naked and alone, in a field, where he had crawled after his killers dumped his body in a roadside ditch.

Police found Hall's body 10 days after his death wrapped in a tarp in the garage of Jackson County Deputy Coroner Terry Gray, whose son is one of the accused.

As far as I can find, the South Bend Tribune hasn't covered it. Like, at all. No articles whatsoever turned up when I searched "Aaron Hall" on their website. The Indy Star? No dice there, either, according to Advance Indiana's blog. They claim it's due to the fact that the Star advocated against adopting hate crimes legislation in Indiana, but did the SBT do so as well? Even freakier, too, is the fact that someone apparently from the Star keeps harassing AI on the issue. What the hell kind of unprofessionalism is going on in Indianapolis?

Read the Alternative's article; this story gets weirder and weirder the further you read.