Judy Shepard on Rachel Maddow regarding NC Rep. Foxx's "Hoax" Comments

[thoreau]

Judy Shepard appeared on last night's edition of the Rachel Maddow Show to discuss the recent expansion of Federal hate crimes legislation and the remarks made by North Carolina representative Virginia Foxx, who, in testifying against the expansion, suggested that Shepard was merely the victim of a robbery, and that suggestions that he was targeted because he was gay were all a part of "a hoax that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."

link to the entire interview video here

Shepard responded:

"Well, you know, attacks of lesser consequence, I guess, have been said about Matt since the beginning, and in 2007 when it passed the House, the same sort of vitriol' was spoken from the floor as well. I did not ever expect it to be called a hoax. Anyone who has done research into what happened to Matt knows it was a hate crime, although technically we couldn't prosecute it that way because there was no hate crime law in Wyoming and no Federal hate crime law protecting sexual orientation. So we couldn't call it a hate crime, but it was."

Told that Foxx had later "clarified" her remarks by saying that "hoax was a poor choice of words," Shepard wasn't particularly mollified. "It's apologizing for semantics, not her ignorance."

On the matter of how the expansion may assist the victims of other hate crimes, Shepard offered some specifics:

"How it will change in Matt's case in particular, in Wyoming, because the federal law did not cover sexual orientation as a protected category, Laramie was not eligible for Federal resources...they had to furlough four employees to pay for the investigation and subsequent trials. That's not right. That's not right...This is an amazing advance of what already exists."

Also worth noting is Maddow's excellent elocution of the rationale behind hate crimes legislation, which intentionally guard against miscarriages of justice, but are often interpreted as political correctness run amok:

"The concept behind this kind of legislation is often misconstrued but here's the deal as I understand it. The idea is that the federal Justice Department can get involved in a case to help local authorities or even to take the lead on a case if need be, in prosecuting individual serious violet crimes and murders in which the victim was selected on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, disability - the idea that crimes like that are intended not only to hurt or murder an individual, but to terrorize an entire community, and so there is a national interest in ensuring that those crimes are solved and prosecuted, particularly if local law enforcement doesn't want to because they are blinkered by the same prejudice that led to the crime in the first place."

Comments

[wrascalbc.livejournal.com]

- the idea that crimes like that are intended not only to hurt or murder an individual, but to terrorize an entire community,

Well spoken, Judy!

[low-fat-muffin.livejournal.com]

actually - thats Rachel Maddow speaking at that point but... yeah - fully awesome!

[snowboardjoe.livejournal.com]

It finally just clicked this is our (North Carolina) representative. How embarrassing. It's not been on the news around here lately.

I just looked her up in Wikipedia and there were some interesting comments in there. There was some allegation about her taking/accepting money from a gay rights group--weird.

She just needs to be bitch-slapped. That is all.

[use2bshy.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. I have learned something and that is what the need was for something called Hate Crimes. It was something that always confused me

[pklexton.livejournal.com]

Some interesting (and controversial) discussion of this on Andrew Sullivan's blog today.

[surewood31.livejournal.com]

I was a Freshman in college when Matthew Shepard was beaten and left for dead. The news of the story really imprinted on me. I attended the speech Judy Shepard gave at our campus and decided for my Freshman English paper to write a persuasive arguement for the implementation of Hate-Crime Legislation.

11 years later.....

[audrabaudra.livejournal.com]

The more I hear about this on your blog, Robert, the more shocked I am.

At a human level, from woman to woman, I cannot believe that Foxx stood there and said that Judy Shepard has been complicit in a mere political spin-job on her own child's murder. The party of "family values" and "compassionate conservatism" has shown, once again, that they are representative of all the worst self-involvement and rudeness that is Amerika.

I'm shocked that one individual, regardless of political persuasion, could stand in front of a mother whose son was brutally murdered and call all of Judy Shepard's efforts to bring the slightest sliver of meaning to her child's slaughter...to call that effort a "hoax." To imply that this mother of a murdered child is a charlatan. Unbelievable.

Where in the world does all the Repugnant hatred come from, and when will it stop?

[budmassey.livejournal.com]

I adore Rachel Maddow, but Mrs. Shepard's choice of words in referring to the foundation's several "killer" websites was unfortunate.