In 1998 Matthew Shepard was murdered near Laramie, Wyoming. The press immediately dubbed it a hate crime and called for laws against hate crimes. There was much talk about homophobia, intolerance, etc. Well, not so fast. A book is coming out next week entitled, “The Book of Matt.” The book was written by Stephen Jiminez, who has interviewed over 100 people including Shepard’s friends, friends of the killers, and the killers themselves.

Breitbart.com posted an article about the book yesterday. The book tells a different story of the murder of Matthew Shepard than the one we were told in 1998.

The book relates the following:

But what really happened to Matthew Shepard?

He was beaten, tortured, and killed by one or both of the men now serving life sentences. But it turns out, according to Jiminez, that 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.

The book also shows that Shepard’s killer was on a five-day meth binge at the time of the killing.

So what’s the point? Whether or not it was a hate crime, Matthew Shepherd is still dead. Why do the details matter?

Another article posted yesterday at Breitbart.com tells us why the details matter:

A piece in the gay culture magazine The Advocate by Aaron Hicklin lays out the facts about the Shepherd mythology, but it also contains a line that is the Rosetta Stone to understanding how leftist narrative mythology is so pervasive in both the arts in journalism. Despite the clear evidence that the story that Shepard was done in by deadly homophobia was inaccurate and that Shepard was instead killled in a meth-fueled bender by another man who was bisexual, Hicklin states:

There are valuable reasons for telling certain stories in a certain way at pivotal times, but that doesn’t mean we have to hold on to them once they’ve outlived their usefulness.

That is an amazing statement. Unfortunately our mainstream media has lost any respect it might have had for the concept of truth. We are being fed garbage in order to evoke a particular reaction–whether or not what we are being told is true.

The second article I cited at Breitbart.com talks about other cases where the media has ignored the facts in favor of a political agenda. I strongly suggest following the link and reading the entire article. News consumers need to be aware of the aims of those reporting the news. We cannot blindly accept everything we are told.