Matthew Shepard Analysis

The LGBT community has been silently suffering through generations. But in this generation, they are finally showing the world their voice. There have been many instances where young adults were denied their right to be who they are and now they are speaking out about the mistreatment. Even though the united states have begun to be more open about the LGBT community here is still more change it come. These changes can be explained through many sociological perspectives including: functionalist, conflict, symbolic interactionism and interactionism. Along with these perspective religion, norms and deviance all impact these individuals who are striving to be open about who they really are inside and out.

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, society wasn’t the most accepting of places for people who were different from the “social norms”. Now I know, people today still struggle with trying to fit in and be “normal” but it was different. Being a gay man living in San Fransisco at the time, which had a large gay population, Richard Rodriguez had a hard time dealing with the discrimination he faced. Richard Rodriguez was an American journalist who wrote and published a memoir about his life as a gay man. In October of 1990, Rodriguez published his memoir “Late Victorians” in Harper’s Magazine, a critically acclaimed publication of the time. In his memoir, Rodriguez describes what it was like to realize he was gay and watch as the country changed to become a more accepting place. He does this by setting up how things can change and then explaining the actual ways things change for the gay population.

Life for most homosexuals during the first half of the Twentieth century was one of hiding, being ever so careful to not give away their true feelings and predilections. Although the 1920s saw a brief moment of openness in American society, that was quickly destroyed with the progress of the Cold War, and by default, that of McCarthyism. The homosexuals of the 50s “felt the heavy weight of medical prejudice, police harassment and church condemnation … [and] were not able to challenge these authorities.” They were constantly battered, both physically and emotionally, by the society that surrounded them. The very mention or rumor of one’s homosexuality could lead to the loss of their family, their livelihood and, in some cases, their

Moses Kaufman is the producer of the successful play “The Laramie Project” after a horrific incident that occurred in Laramie. Members of the artistic group of Kaufman 's, traveled to Laramie to find out more about the horrific incidence. The main aim of the whole project was to find the emotions, reactions, and reflections that the people of Laramie manifested concerning the beating and subsequent death of a twenty-three-year-old college student (Gale, 2016). A lot of questions were raised concerning the death as people had different point of views. Some thought it was a hate crime, others thought it was just a brutal assault or a form of robbery. Four hundred interviews were conducted so as to come up with the reasons behind the brutal murder straight from the town folks. The main issue was how homosexuality was defined in the crime. The Laramie Project, questioned the rights of the LGBT+ group. For example, why were Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgenders discriminated by the community and the society as a whole even though their rights were constitutional?

This book Pray the Gay Away by Bernadetta C. Barton discusses about certain areas in the United States called Bible Belts were they have made absolutely no progress in securing rights for gay people. They lag behind the rest of nation were people are accepting homosexuality (Pray the Gay Away 15). Barton argues that in small towns were Christian institutions serve as a foundation for both passive and active homophobia in these areas (Pray the Gay Away 19). This article is related to the play because the two dominant religions discussed in the play was Judaism and Mormonism and both religions strongly oppose homosexuality and this lead to homophobic attitudes and themes within the play.

Reverend Fred Phelps was the preacher who staged the anti-gay demonstration and Matthew was a homosexual that was brutally beaten and left to die on fence in Wyoming. Simply because he was a homosexual and “[after] seeing Fred Phelps protesting at Matthew's funeral”(Kaufman 79) you can see that Phelps and his followers are afraid of change. Fueled by Phelp's religion that being gay is a sin, the religion he preaches further opresses homosxuals. Religion plays a large role on homophobia within Laramie itself. Reverand Phelps was preaching the word of his god, “Were standing here with God's message. We're standing here with God's message. Is homosexuality-is being a fag okay? What do you mean it's not for you to judge? If God doesn't hate fags, why does he put 'em in hell?” (Kaufman 79) Phelps shows absolutly no respect for the family and friends of Matthew Shepard, it reveals that the Reverend himself is afraid change because if he stoops down that low to shun Matthew from his religion. Religion plays a big role in homophobia in societies all over the word, in alot of religions to be gay was different and being different really meant you were condemed, because anyone who believes in a religion will feel the need to practise the words of their God. The religious juxtaposition in the novel shows that homophobic people are afraid of accepting homosexuals,

He successfully presented the varying perspectives toward homosexuality in the Laramie Community at the time of Shepard death. The play was unbiased and did not show favoritism to a particular group. By showing the different perspectives towards homosexuality, I was able to see the full picture about the matter. After familiarizing with The Laramie Project and Mathew Shepard’s story, I realized all the different perspectives others have towards homosexuality. It is not plainly black and white but there are different shades of grey. The author of the play achieved his objectives because of all the viewpoints that were provided from the different groups of

A lot of the townspeople from Laramie were shocked that the criminals were from their own community. Many people were in denial that something like this could happen in their town, while others wanted to make the townspeople accountable. “My secret hope was that they were from somewhere else, that then of course you can create that distance: We don't grow children like that here. Well, it's pretty clear that we do grow children like that here” (Jacobus 1640). “it happened here...we need to own this crime. I feel. Everyone needs to own it...We ARE like this” (Jacobus 1645). The people of Laramie had once believed that they were a live-and-let-live kind of place and now they were beginning to doubt this. “live and let live. That is such crap...basically what it boils down to: if I don't tell you I'm a fag, you won’t beat the crap out of me. I mean, what's so great about that?” (Jacobus 1645). People were left in a state of confusion. Even the criminals “don’t seem to understand the reasons for their crime any better than anyone else” (Evans). Matthew Sheppard's attack influenced the attitudes of many people in Laramie and forced them to realize the truth of the attitudes of others in the community.

The human body is an object in which one lives and the medium through which one experiences oneself and the world. The human body vests claims on ideology and space; and thus participates as the site on which conflicts about belief systems and territory contest violently. Gay bodies become entangled in violence when they enter into arenas that combat certain ideas. Gay bashing illustrates incidences all in which bodies experience physical injury. In modern U.S. communities various militant conservatives individually target homosexuals in "gay bashing." Though few conservative political groups explicitly avow targeting gays for physical violence, their members individually carry out anti-gay brutality. Mathew

“Sex was something mysterious which happened to married couples and Homosexuality was never mentioned; my mother told me my father did not believe it existed at all ‘until he joined the army’. As a child, I was warned about talking to ‘strange men’, without any real idea what this meant. I was left to find out for myself what it was all about.” Mike Newman, who was a child during the 1950s America recalls how homosexuality was perceived during the post-World War II era (F). This sexual oppression was not only in Newman’s household, but in almost everyone’s. While the civil rights movement began in the mid-1950s and ended late 1960s, the LGBT community started to come out of the closet slowly. The gay rights movement stemmed from the civil rights movement

As a general public, it's outlandish for us to investigate our own particular internal certainties without acknowledging in some capacity that our value isn't managed independently from anyone else alone. The ideas of bias and judgment in light of the characters that are the most unpreventable twirled to a head in this period of retribution, race, and sexuality specifically. The way we see underestimated sexuality delineated and potential HIV+ status in Six Degrees mirror the normal experience of the time, feeling as an individual like some piece of you is a creature disguised on display. Despite the fact that we see through, Paul, Trent, and Rich, the narrow-minded way that this world sees homosexuality, being gay are neither denounced nor is it commended specifically by the play itself. It is introduced like everything else in Six Degrees, a subjective and complex reality that requires additionally understanding before falling back on suspicions. Correspondingly, the twofold edged nature of well-meaning bigotry is analyzed. For instance, amid Flan, Ouisa, Paul, and Geoffrey's first destined supper together, the white characters swing to Paul for his feeling on politically-sanctioned racial segregation, as though his thoughts as the token dark individual in their essence will settle the undertaking for the last time. He performs commendably to their wants; his reaction is thoughtful to human rights however not apparently definitive, and doesn't present any specifically disquieting test to the way of life in which Ouisa, Flan, and Geoffrey as of now work. This presence of acknowledgment just through osmosis is an expansive idea for Six

The Laramie Project is a play written by Moises Kaufman and the members of Tectonic Theater Project. The play is based on the interviews of the citizens of Laramie about what’s happening in Laramie and their responses to the murder of Matthew. In addition to the various themes suggested by the play, the author wanted to present the varying perspectives toward homosexuality in the Laramie community at the time of Matthew’s death. The author also wanted to explore how these perspectives may have changed as the result of Matthew’s death. Even though the citizens of Laramie persisted that hate is not a value they practice, they still showed contrasting and puzzled views

In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people

I will be writing about George Chauncey’s Gay New York. In this text, George Chauncey seeks to restore that world to history, to chart its geography, and to recapture its culture and politics by challenging three widespread myths about the history of gay life before the rise of the gay movement. These include the myths of isolation, invisibility and internalization. The homosexual community is considered a subculture to the heterosexual community, which identifies as the dominant culture. George Chauncey wants to know why the dominant heterosexual culture often misinterprets the heterosexual subculture. He also talks about the assumptions the dominant culture carries about sexuality and culture. I believe there are two reasons the dominant culture misinterprets and make assumptions about the homosexual community; these two reasons consist of religious beliefs and social stigma of the dominant culture towards the subculture.

Within modern-day America, there are certain societal standards based on sexual relationships. Within the poem, the narrator, a young woman, questions why she has to “wear the brand of shame; /whilst he amid the gay and proud/still bears an honored name” (Harper 26-28). Within her poem, Harper exposes the hypocrisy of the