Problem is, the entire story looks to be a legend. The reason he was killed, the relationship between the killers and the victim, the backgrounds of all the parties involved, etc., were false. Even those involved with investigating the crime (and friends of both the victim and the killers) say the way the crime was portrayed was all wrong.
Why does this matter now? Anne Holthouse makes the case:
If a legend is used as leverage to change the law, we need to be willing to think about whether the legend is true, and if it is not, we need to be willing to rethink our analysis.
Remember Cindy Dixon? She was the mother of Russell Henderson, one of the two men convicted of murdering Matthew Shepard. Henderson, the L.A. Times article tells us, "was the driver that night. He never hit Shepard, but, on McKinney's order, he tied him to the fence."
"In January 1999, Henderson's mother, Cindy Dixon, was found dead. She had been raped and struck and left in the snow to die. No powerful advocates spoke for her. She was likely to come to a bad end, people said, what with the drinking and the men, and then her son….
"Nobody took the measure of hate. By the time the Dixon case was wrapped up, they weren't even talking murder. A man pleaded guilty to manslaughter, and the same judge who sent Dixon's son to prison forever sentenced her killer to four to nine years. He got out last year."
Justice demands that we think clearly about criminal responsibility and not let our minds be clouded by evocative stories that mesh with our assumptions about the world and our social policy aspirations. I believe the cause of gay rights is a very good one, and I also think that if the cause is good, truth should serve it. If you think your cause is so important that you must put it ahead of the truth, you are deeply confused.
By the way, do you think Barbara Walters would have ever done this story? Don't think so. Stossel is clearly running the ship now.
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