Matthew Shepard

[Lemur]

You're usually pretty good at weeding through BS to reveal the reality of a given situation, so I will trust your judgment on this.

On balance, I'd agree, but then SK says stuff like this:

One of bad things about myths like this is the "you must passionately believe my version or else" attitude.

Which is an unfortunate tic of his rhetoric. Note that SK frequently argues with an entirely imaginary antagonist, one who is not posting or responding on this forum. It's a hypothetical other, a person who is perfectly unreasonable, who may or may not exist in reality, but against whom SK rails with gusto.

I don't doubt that the Matthew S. situation is a lot more murky than it was initially made out to be, and I don't doubt that the author of the book did good work. You can look at the media frenzy and note that it's predicated on false terms, while simultaneously observing that some good came of the misrepresentation.

Unless you're SK's hypothetical antagonist. That guy, man, he's totally unreasonable.