Matthew Shepard Essays

Matthew Wayne “Matt” Shepard was an openly gay student at the University of Wyoming who was beaten, tortured, and left to die in a field on the evening of October 6, 1998. After spending five days in a comma, Matthew Shepard died on October 12, 1998 at 12:53 a.m. in which the cause of death was caused by the massive injuries and head trauma he sustained during a robbery and hate crime assault. Due to the nature of the crime, Shepard’s death quickly became the center of international and political

The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman is a play that captures the sentiment in Laramie, Wyoming following the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, at the hands of Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. The play incorporates real-life interviews and testimonies from Laramie residents performed by the actors and actresses. By using the verbatim quotes from people involved with the incident and its aftermath, Kaufman grounds the play in reality and prevents fictional elements from undercutting

Matthew Shepard was the victim in one of the worst hate-crime murders in history. On the night of October 6, 1998, an openly gay man was viciously beaten. Matthew Shepard was a twenty-one-year-old openly gay man. Matthew hadn’t come out until after high school. He was a freshman at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, Wyoming. He had a troubled past. Matthew had gone to Morocco, South Africa with three of his classmates. One night he couldn’t sleep so he decided to go to a nearby coffeehouse, where

in nature. Throughout history, this fact had both aided and hurt us. Matthew Shepard was a case in which this tendency hurt us. On the night of October 6th, 1998, Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, brutally beaten, and robbed, tied to a fence and left to die. Once Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay, the town of Laramie reacted, mostly with love and support. The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman depicts the story of Matthew Shepard's murder, and the struggle to overcome hatred versus homosexuals

conduct interviews about Matthew Shepard horrible death. The problem is that these people all go into Laramie assuming this murder was a hate crime, therefore they are very biased in the way the assume Aaron McKinney and Russel Henderson killed Shepard because he was gay. By doing this they stayed away from the problems that Shepard had, such as prostitution and Methamphetamine. Later, Jimenez goes and conducts interviews as-well, but he doesn’t shy away from the truth. Shepard was not murdered because

group of people travel to Laramie, Wyoming to conduct interviews about Matthew Shepard’s horrendous death. These people go into Laramie with the pre-determined notion that it was motivated by Shepards sexual orientation., therefore they are very biased in this way. The media immediatly jumped on this case and made it a hate crime, and ignored all other evidence in the case. By doing this they stayed away from the problems that Shepard had, such as prostitution and Methamphetamine. Later, Stephen Jimenez

the murder of Matthew Shepard. The article from The New York Times, Gay Man Dies From Attack, Fanning Outrage and Debate, by James Brooke, is specifically dedicated to conveying the news from an unbiased viewpoint. There are definitive differences found in both writing pieces that arguably make the play more effective at serving it’s purpose than the news article. The play, The Laramie Project, was a two year process that started immediately following the death of Matthew Shepard. The idea for

On the night of October 6, 1998, Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, robbed, brutally beaten, and tied to a fence left to die by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. The book takes place in the drive-through town of Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. The members of the Tectonic Theater Project investigate and conduct over two hundred interviews in order to get more first-hand information about the murder. The author uses literary elements to discuss political and social issues when interviewing Jedadiah Schultz

this quote helps explain that Matthew was beaten badly and it was not just with their fist but also with a pistol as well. Another helpful quote is “ Our focus is to turn to Laramie, Wyoming and the Albany county courthouse, where Aaron James McKinney and Russell Arther Henderson are being charged for the brutal beating of Matthew Shepard, a gay university of Wyoming student. (Kaufman 49) This quote states that two people who are responsible for the attack on Matthew

The play is obviously about the geographical community of Laramie. It was obviously inspired by the death of Matthew Shepard. But did the piece address an inequality? Did it facilitate the healing of a community? To both of these questions, I think yes. Matthew Shepard was likely killed due to his sexuality which shed light upon an inequality in the community: homophobia. Not only so, but the play attempts to show characters in an unbiased

In the play The Laramie Project, the most compelling moment that I’ve found in the book was the moment “Dennis Shepard” because this moment was the final statement that was given before Aaron would’ve received the death penalty. In this moment, Kaufman is trying to make the argument that by adding in the voice of Dennis Shepard in giving the last statement before the court decides what do with Aaron, this choice is very effective because his statement basically summarizes how he and his family feels

Loffreda, Beth. 2000. Losing Matt Shepard. New York, New York: Columbia University Press. The murder of Matt Shepard, and the reason for it, will be remembered. The book, Losing Matt Shepard focuses on the murder of Matt Shepard and some of the effects and events surrounding it. The book was written by Beth Loffreda. Beth Loffreda has a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree from the University of Virginia and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree from Rutgers University. Loffreda now works as the Associate

On October 12, 1998, in Colorado, USA, 21-year old Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. Shepard was born in Casper, Wyoming in 1976. He spent most of his elementary, middle and most of his high school years in Wyoming until he moved to Saudi Arabia with his parents in 1994*. While attending the American School in Switzerland, on February 1995, Shepard was beaten and raped during a high school trip to Morocco by 4 males*. People have contended that his body

because the person is participating in a federally protected activity, such as public education, employment, jury service, travel, or the enjoyment of public accommodations, or helping another person to do so. However, in 2009, Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This made it easier to prosecute criminals while also adding in gender, disability, gender identity, or sexual orientation. There is much debate on whether hate crime laws are a necessity or not

the world’s most famous gay murder was committed. Everyone who was looking at the news, and at the time everyone knew that the victim (Matthew Shepard) was killed because of his sexuality. Now with the latest information that has surfaced over the years more people are asking questions. Was Matthew Shepard killed because he was a homosexual? Matthew Shepard at 21 years of age, was a student of the University of Wyoming. He was found tied to fence on the outside of Laramie. He was freezing and

Before Gagarin and eventually Shepard went into space, the NASA made a program for people, with experience in flying planes and such, to apply to be the first man into space. Now this is before the United States knew they were going to be shown up by the USSR, so they were focused on safety and doing things the right way, on schedule. Their training was rigorous and mandatory. The training and regulated food was so that any of their immune systems could survive the unknown just as good as their skills

This book was written by St. John the apostle, a follower of Jesus. The Gospel of John consists of 21 chapters. The apostle John was also called John the Evangelist, or the Beloved Disciple. He was the son of Zebedee and brother of James the great, who also was an apostle of Jesus. He was called by Jesus to be a disciple of the Lord, in the first year of Jesus’ public ministry. He was the only apostle who didn’t deny Jesus as his teacher during the passion of the Christ (St. John the Apostle

The Gospel of John contains some of the most profound truth which is expressed in the simplest way. It is full of imagery and symbolism which though concise and limited bears deep spiritual meaning. In his book, The Interpretation of the fourth Gospel, C. H. Dodd must have been the first to identify the leading ideas and thus separate in form and function the allegories of the Gospel of John from the synoptic parables and connect them with the Old Testament and the Hellenistic-Jewish symbolic tradition

The poet and artist William Blake spoke about the role of Jewish literature in shaping western civilization he states that "the Old and New Testaments are the Great Code of Art." Northrop Frye, whose Anatomy of Criticism is the third most frequently cited twentieth century work in the humanities and arts, states that in a sense all his critical work, beginning with a study of Blake which was published in 1947, and formulated ten years later in Anatomy of Criticism, has revolved around the Bible

In Matthew 13, Jesus begins to teach with parables because he wants all to understand how to his disciples and that there is a clear division between his disciples and others, the sacrifice of the whole self, and that the disciples will have a universal influence (Mitch and Sri 174). Matthew 13:1 begins with "On that day" to note that Jesus spoke of these parables the same day he came in contact with the Pharisees in chapter 12 (Mitch and Sri 176). Then, Jesus left Peter 's house in Capernaum and