Powerful Anti-Hate Ad Imagines What Harvey Milk, Matthew Shepard, and Others Would Be Like Today: VIDEO

A powerful new ad from the Anti-Defamation League takes a look at a number of well-known figures whose lives were cut short by hate, imagining what their lives might be like today. MLK Jr., Anne Frank, Harvey Milk, Daniel Pearl, James Byrd, JR., Matthew Shepard, and Yitzhak Rabin are included in the ad which marks the organization's centennial year.

The ad is set, appropriately, to the music of John Lennon.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Tectonic Theatre Project Presents 'The Laramie Project Cycle' At BAM: REVIEW

BY NAVEEN KUMAR

Just months after the fifteenth anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death, the Tectonic Theatre Project presents both plays of The Laramie Project Cycle at Brooklyn Academy of Music, performing in repertory at the Harvey Theater through February 24^th. 

These extraordinary productions, helmed by Tectonic’s resident director Moisés Kaufman (The Heiress), are proof of The Laramie Project’s lasting ingenuity. Then, as now, this is provocative, innovative, and wrenching theatre—and its call to arms for social justice is as urgent as ever.

In the fall of 1998, just one month after Shepard’s death, members of the theatre company travelled to Laramie, Wyoming to interview its citizens about their experience with one the country’s most notorious hate crimes and its explosive aftermath—including the ensuing media frenzy, investigation and trail of Shepard’s murderers, and how all of this affected the small western town.

Beautifully assembled using interview transcripts, company member journal entries, and other published accounts, the result is a searing and powerful play that offers rare insight into the emotional lives of those immediately affected by a tragedy that quickly escalated to the national level. The company conceived a second play by the same process in 2008, The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later, to follow up on developments in the community.

This momentous New York production of both plays reunites most of the Tectonic company members who traveled to Laramie and conceived the original project, which has since been adapted into an HBO film and seen thousands of productions around the country.

CONTINUED, AFTER THE JUMP...

Man Charged In Kentucky Attack Challenges Hate Crimes Law

Anthony Ray Jenkins, one of the Kentucky men accused in the 2011 beating of a gay man named Kevin Pennington, has filed a claim saying he cannot be charged under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act because the federal government "arbitrarily" created a protected population.

"Providing greater protection for victims of crime based on sexual orientation than other crime victims is advancing the arbitrarily creation of classes of individuals," said Jenkins' attorney Willis Coffey. This trial is the first time someone is being charged under the hate crime law's sexual orientation protections.

A decision on the matter would set a precedent that either cements the law or calls it into question, leading to a potential judicial showdown like the one currently brewing around marriage equality.

Mistake at the National Book Awards Leads to Withdrawal of Gay-Themed Novel, Donation to Matthew Shepard Foundation

After an unfortunate hearing error in the recitation of the nominees, author Lauren Myracle, the author of Shine, a book about friendship and an anti-gay hate crime in the South, agreed to withdraw her novel as a nominee in the Young People Literature category of the National Book Awards this week. National Book Foundation staff had originally misheard Shine for Chime when the list of nominees was read by the judges:

Last week, Chime by Franny Billingsley was added as a sixth nominee to the category, and Harold Augenbraum, NBF executive director, confirmed Monday that NBF staff had originally misheard Shine for Chime when the list of nominees was read by the judges over the phone. The mistake was not caught until the judges heard the announcement on last Wednesday’s radio broadcast. The YPL judge’s panel is chaired by author Marc Aronson.

Myracle and her publisher were, not surprisingly, crestfallen:

Myracle’s publisher Susan Van Metre said she found the entire process dismaying. “This was a week of extraordinary highs and lows, and throughout, all of us at Amulet and Abrams have remained in complete support of our amazing author, who has published great, groundbreaking books with our house for almost a decade,” she said
 
NBF has agreed to donate $5,000 to the Matthew Shepard Foundation in support of Shine, which deals with issues faced by young gay people as part of the story that revolves around a hate crime.

Thirteen Years Later, Judy Shepard Recalls Matthew's Murder, Legacy

Judy Shepard remembers her son Matthew and meditates on his legacy thirteen years after his horrific murder:

Thirteen years ago this week his father, brother and I were at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colo., with our firstborn son, Matthew Shepard. He was 21, and dying. Just days before, he had been just like millions of American college students whose names are not known to the world -- getting the hang of his new classes, adapting to a new campus, making friends. His father and I thought his biggest challenges were keeping money in his checking account and getting his homework in on time.

But here he was in intensive care, the victim of a terrible, senseless attack at the hands of two other young men who, at some point in their lives, learned it was OK to hate others for being different, to victimize them, to disregard their humanity.

Matt passed away quietly in the early morning hours of Oct. 12, 1998, with his family at his bedside. He died because of violence fueled by anti-gay hatred. For a lot of reasons, some of which we will probably never quite understand, the world had been watching, praying for him, and voicing their outrage.

October cannot go by anymore, and never will again, without us wondering what might have been, for us and for so many other families, if hatred of gay, and lesbian, and bisexual, and transgendered people, and all those whom others simply think might be, had been rooted out long ago.

Watch Judy Shepard's touching appearance on Ellen a year ago, AFTER THE JUMP...

Creating Matt's Legacy [huffington post]

Matthew Shepard Foundation [official site]

Watch: Matthew Shepard is a Friend of Mine

Michele Josue is a friend of the late Matthew Shepard's. She's looking for funding for her documentary, which looks beautifully handled and hopes to provide a fresh look at the murder that horrified us all, and still horrifies.

Watch, AFTER THE JUMP...

Kickstarter page. Facebook page.