Save Matthew's Legacy: Protest ABC's 20/20 (11/26/04)

[nikraye]

http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/33855.htm

Does anyone else find it odd that this ABC "press release" was run in only one mainstream newspaper, namely, Ruppert Murdoch's NY Post? Yes, it's true the story's been picked up by a handful of GLBT sites (advocate, 365gay, digital spy) but the only mainstream media I've seen it in is the Post.

The Post is the equivalent of FOX News, both owned by Murdoch, and both known for spinning, even distorting, facts to suit the conservative agenda.

That the Post printed this "press release" a good two weeks before the segment's airtime, gives plenty of notice and time for controversy to stir, increasing its viewership. Reminds me of the Sinclair Broadcasting "press release" announcing the controversial airing of the anti-Kerry propaganda film, "Stolen Honor." Again, I can't help but feel this 6 y.o. "news" story is plant by Rove, intended to further divide this already split nation.

There's also a very likely political motive behind this: Conservatives, fundamentalists, and BUSH himself oppose adding "sexual orienttion" to the existing Federal hate crimes law. They believe, in fact, that ALL crimes are "hate" crimes; thus "hate crime" laws are unfair as they "treat similar crimes unequally."

But I had to ask myself, "Would ABC knowingly air this anti-Gay, anti-hate crime piece?"

I did some googling. Here's what I found:

--Disney owns ABC. Disney's 2nd largest shareholder (Euro Disney) is the Saudi Royal Family, long time cronies of the Bush Crime Family. http://www.bupipedream.com/012704/wire/w2.htm

--Since 2000, there have been several changes to Disney's board of directors. One is Aylwin B. Lewis, who also sits on the board of Halliburton, Dickhead Cheney's corrupt war-for-profit company. http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/bios/aylwin_lewis.html

--The other Disney board director is John Bryson, a director of The Boeing Company, another war-for-profit US contractor ($100B) currently under federal criminal investigation ala Halliburton. Even more interesting, he is the Chairman of the Board and President/CEO of Edison International, the parent company of Southern California Edison, an electric utility, since 1990. Bryson wrote the deregulation legislation which gave Enron the greenlight to rob Californians of billions during the artificially created Enron-induced California energy crisis. Bryson also founded NRDC, a former front organization for Enron, funded in part by the neoconservative Pew Foundation. http://corporate.disney.go.com/corporate/bios/aylwin_lewis.html

So let's sum it up:

ABC is owned by Disney who's board members are tied to Boeing, Halliburton and Enron.

We know that Rove was instrumental in getting the anti-gay measures on 11 states ballots...

We know that Rove was behind the media saturation of anti-gay rhetoric and blame in the days immediately following Nov. 2nd.

We know, too, that Rove, in Bush's 2000 campaign, hired Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the anti-Gay Christian Coalition, who was paid between $10,000 and $20,000 per month by Enron while he "volunteered" his full-time work on the Bush campaign. Rove’s alleged deal permitted Bush to solidify his political position among anti-Gay, radical-right groups of voters and simultaneously appeal to centrist voters with a moderate public image. http://www.sgn.org/2002/02/01/enron.htm

We also know, or most of us suspect, that Rove was behind the leak of the forged Killian docs that humiliated Rather and CBS, and simultaneously boosted Bush's ratings AND quashed CBS's airing of the REAL forged docs, the Niger docs, which would have exposed Bush's "WMD" justification for the Iraq War as the lie we all now know it to be.

Okay, I'm almost done here...bear with me...

Rove puts pressure on cronies sitting on the Disney board to direct ABC to tell 20/20 to run this "breaking" news story (six years "new"): Matthew Shepard wasn't a victim of a hate crime after all! Rove then gets his surrogate Ruppert Murdoch to print this two weeks before air date. Murdoch includes just enough info about the segment to cause a stir among the gays and...voila! By the time the segment airs, there will be so much controversy a-swirl that EVERYONE will watch-- wingnuts, lefties, and gays--and once again, we gays we'll be backed up against the wall, fighting like hell to defend our right for hate crime protection. Of course, we'll be alone because by now the Democrats and Leftwingers are all wanting to appear a little closer to the center due to Rove's phony polling result of "moral values."

And here comes the best part: When the repubs start to abolish all and any hate crime legislation, at the federal and state levels, the Dems won't put up even the hint of a fight for fear of looking like "gay sympathizers", which does not keep with Bush's mandate of "moral values". With the blink of an eye, states red and blue will be revoking what hate crime laws there are, and the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act that the Dems for years have been trying to pass through Congress will die a quick, silent death...never to be mentioned again.

To my GLBT brothers and sisters: Do not let this happen. Do not let BushCo and Rove get away with this. We've fought too hard, too long, to get hate crime laws passed in the few states they're in.

To my straight cousins--Dems, Indies, and moderate Repubs--please, please, please don't let the RW, the neocons, and BushCo steamroll you into abolishing hate crime laws or dismissing that which Matthew Shepard died for. Matthew's murder was hate-motivated, without question, because he was Gay. Please don't let anyone, through the despicable act of rewriting history, force you to believe otherwise.

Remember, this isn't just about Gays. When Bush, as governor of Texas, said, ""I think all crime is hate...I think the way to get rid of hate in people's hearts, the best course I know is religion," he wasn't talking about a GAY hate crime, but about the truck-dragging murder of James Byrd Jr., who was Black. If hate crime laws go away, it affects ALL minorities--gay, black, hispanic, asian, muslim, disabled, transgendered--all of us.

Write to ABC, Disney, 20/20, Oprah, Rosie, Ted Kennedy...ANYONE who'll listen, anyone who can help. We must STOP Bush, Rove, Disney, and ABC from running this anti-gay propaganda piece, fight it just as hard as we fought Sinclair.

Save Matthew's legacy. Don't let his death have been in vain.

****************************

ABC: [e-mail]
ABC News: [e-mail]

20/20:
Online Form: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=123566&page=1 (Warning: copy your message before hitting submit; some people have reported it can take 2 or 3 times before the page successfully submits.)
OR EMAIL: [e-mail]

Local Affiliates: click on your state in the map for a list of local affiliates and call, email, or fax them as well.
http://abc.go.com/abc/utility/localstations.html

GLAAD (Gays & Lesbians Against Anti-Defamation)--so far GLAAD has taken no action on this; perhaps if they get copied on *enough* emails, they'll get off their asses and take a stand against ABC:

Joan Garry, Exec. Director(mentioned in article): [e-mail]
and/or use the website form to report media irresponsibility: http://www.glaad.org/contact.php

The Matthew Shepard Foundation:

The Matthew Shepard Foundation
Judy Shepard, Foundation Executive Director
Tina Nations, Programs Manager, Grants Administrator
301 Thelma #512
Casper, WY 82609
307-237-6167
fax [phone]
[e-mail]

[nikraye]

1. kick

[mtnester]

2. ABC/Disney are well aware

of our household's long boycott of their networks and products. We remind them periodically that they STILL do not have us as viewers or customers.

We took special pleasure of reminding them as a Neilson household.

[Jehanatu]

3. This is nothing new,

just Corporate America doing their best to make their personal conservative freepers heroes. They were able to do it with Ronald Reagan, and they've been able to do it with *. Does anyone here know that the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is owned by General Electric (GE)? It makes Jehan veery veery paranoid.

[Liberal Christian]

4. My Email to 20/[e-mail]

Subject heading: Shame on you!!!

I can't even begin to measure my disgust and outrage over 20/20's attempted whitewash of the Matthew Shepard murder last week.

By making hearsay and unsubstantiated claims about Matthew being concerned about HIV, by not challenging Aaron McKinney's statement that he first hit Matthew with a gun because Matthew put his hand on Aaron's leg (as though that were a reasonable response!), by her constantly sympathetic facial expression and tone of voice when talking with the people who perpetrated this horrible and brutal crime, ABC and 20/20 are engaging in a piece of revisionist history of which you should be ashamed.

The tone of your story seems to indicate that the kind of brutality these two people perpetrated was somehow less brutal if it was drug-related than if it was motivated by anti-gay sentiments. "Oh, well, y'know, those poor misunderstood boys was all hopped up on drugs. They cain't really be held responsible for they're actions, now, can they?" Good grief!!!!

The truth, which neither one denies, is that they meant to beat and rob an innocent victim. Matthew Shepard's background, his possible HIV-positive status, his own alleged drug use, and his (according to you) "privileged background" are simply not part of the equation. Why on earth would you find it necessary to blame the victim, make it seem as though he had anything to do with this?

Henderson and McKinney committed acts of extreme brutality against a defenseless person. What, other than a desire to play into some kind of right-wing-anti-gay-fundamentalist-rigid-moralism sentiment sweeping the country, could possibly have motivated ABC and 20/20 to attempt to rehabilitate the image of these sadistic murderers?

You should be ashamed. And you should apologize to Matthew Shepard's family, as well as to the American people who, apparently mistakenly, put their trust in ABC News.

It's getting harder and harder to tell ABC and Fox News apart. I'll bet that makes you folks ecstatic to hear.

Yuck.