Hate & Fear

"You've got to be taught to hate and fear.
You've got to be carefully taught."
Song from South Pacific.


Out-of-state hate-mongers, energized by the grief of Matthew Shepard's family and friends, waded through falling snow. "No tears for queers" was one of the milder-messaged posters they carried. Need to know more? Hit godhatesfags.com on the Internet.

As friend and former physician to Dennis and Judy Shepard, I was - as was most of the world - violated by this hideous crime. Rita and I share with Dennis and Judy the loss of a 21 year old child.

For Rita and me, Matthew's funeral on Friday merged into a Saturday trip to Provincetown on Cape Cod. In tourist season, fifty thousand people live alongside P-Town's narrow streets.

Upon arrival, a police-woman gave us a card listing the following definitions. The "Town Manager's Hate Plan Working Group" wrote them. A Hate Crime is an assault with force, or threat of assault upon any person or property motivated by hate or bias. A Hate Incident occurs when anyone directs hate or bias language at any person or group of persons.

"If you have been assaulted or threatened with assault, because of your race, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or handicap, your civil rights have been violated." Report it to the Provincetown police! Dial 911 or 487-1212. The officer tells me such calls are rare.

A week of education (not without time for sun and sea) gave me time to think about the preceding ten days. I groped to gather my thoughts.

On October 24, I saw a repugnant story in the Boston Globe. The headline: "SC University bans campus visits from gay alumni." It happens at Bob Jones University, a fundamentalist "Christian" school in South Carolina.

Listen to Bob Jones spokesman, Jonathan Pait: "A gay graduate who returns to campus will be asked to leave before being arrested by school police." Pray with Jim Berg, dean of students: "Our greatest delight would be in your return to the Lord."

Take heart. "The policy does not apply to visitors on this fenced-in 200 acre campus." It does "cover cult members, unrepentant criminals, and other alumni who have strayed from the school's teaching."

The Wyoming football squad is wearing "Tolerance" decals on their game helmets. Your school will not forget, Matt.

I do not consider my alma mater, Notre Dame, free of blame. On October 8, a resolution before the Academic Counsel to add sexual orientation to the university's non-discrimination clause was "delayed." The Council stated it needed more information "on the legal and religious ramifications."

In a current National Catholic Reporter, Tara Dix, a senior at Notre Dame, gives her impressions of the school. Do not misunderstand: She loves ND! Yet she does have one reservation...

Tara writes: "In the past year, students have had to suffer through a weekly bombardment of offensive ads for a continuing lecture series promoting conversion therapy for gays and lesbians on campus."

Such "therapy" is nonsense!

One of Matt's accused murderers is an Eagle Scout. The Boy Scouts of America have outlawed gay scoutmasters. A message to all Scouts? My Eagle Scout award hangs on my study wall. I may send it back.

Since May, at least four, and possibly as many as seven, gay and trans-people died, by murder, in Greenwich Village. Of the four crimes confirmed to be bias murders, two were gay inspired, two were trans-identified.

On the evening of October 23, his wife and four sons present, Dr. Barnett Slepian fell victim to a sniper's bullet in his home in Amherst, New York. Why? He had performed abortions.

For the November 3 election, The "Christian" Coalition distributed forty-five million copies of their voting guide. Randy Tate, executive director of this group, appeared on CNN. He listed the three great issues upon which we must judge our candidates. Abortion, homosexuality and vouchers for religious schools.

We kill abortionists. We kill gays. Will we soon kill those who reject school vouchers?

Hate has broad targets. Recall James Byrd of Jasper, Texas? Dragged behind a pickup truck, he died. He was black. So was Garnett P. Johnson, Jr., a former Marine. Emmett Cressell doused Johnson with gasoline, set him afire, then beheaded him. On this November 5, a Virginia jury judged it murder.

Prejudice flows along many channels. Queer-fear is in vogue. Gay-bashing has become a national pastime. Churches, schools, organizations are party to the paranoia, as are many individuals. Trent Lott, Newt Gingrich, Gary Bauer, Pat Buchanan, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell are but a few.

Name others? Those of us who remain silent!

President Lyndon Baines Johnson said: "We must make a world in which all God's children can live." Often I despair that this is an attainable goal.

In the November 9 issue of The Nation, Tony Kushner, award winning playwright, literally screams (italics his): "Matthew Shepard shouldn't have died. We should all burn with shame."

I have sympathy for Kushner's rage. How many human beings must die on the pyre of prejudice?

In our "Equality State," diversity is a proud value. This is small consolation for Dennis and Judy, Matthew and Logan Shepard.

They are in our hearts.

Dr. Murphy was Wyoming's first Governor of the American College of Physicians and a medical editor of the Western Journal of Medicine. E-mail him at dozn@trib.com