What Is Tradition In Laramie

As the years have gone by, you can see the change of how gays and lesbians are widely seen in mostly every tv show or movie in today’s society. This is something most of our own parents didn’t even grow up seeing gays throughout the media. Living in today’s time period, you’re able to see how the influence has changed the way people see gays and lesbians. The nation has become more accepting of the gay and lesbian culture verses back in the days of when our parents and even grandparents were our age. Not only was is rare to see homosexuals on television, it was portrayed negatively, and now you can see it portrayed positively.

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.

In The Laramie Project, a character name Cathy Connolly claims that gay the people in Laramie feel the oppression from society, and are

The Laramie Project is a play written by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project by interviewing the residents of Laramie Wyoming about the murder of a gay student, Matthew Shepard. The play raises controversy revolving around homosexuality, hate crimes and acceptance. 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 Shepard death. The three main perspectives towards homosexuality were hatred, tolerance and acceptance. The author also wanted to explore how these perspectives may have changed as the result of Shepard’s death.

Laramie, WY, is a modest town which became ignominious overnight in the fall of 1998, when Matthew Shepard, a gay college student, was found tied to a fence after being callously beaten and left to die, setting off a nationwide dispute about homophobia and hate crimes. My reaction to this moment in time initially is horror and shock that people did and do these unspeakable acts to their fellow human. However, I can also appreciate the many different views that were portrayed in the film.

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.

Religion played an enormous role in Laramie before and after the incident with Matthew Shepard, as it continues to do in many religious individuals to this day. Jedidiah Schultz, a local of Laramie, Wyoming told his story about getting into Wyoming University. “And they brought me into their room and told me that if I did that scene, that they would not come to see me in that competition”(10). Schultz’s parents are an example of this time period where religion is a strong factor in making decisions of daily morals. When the Tectonic Theater Project spoke to the Reverend after Shepard’s beating, he addressed the wrongness of violence, but didn’t really directly address the issue of homosexuality, probably unwilling to directly speak out against

mainstream society was “always a dirty word… but the practice was not a dirty thing.” Cowboys

If this was not a sexually charged act of intimacy, then why are they worried about being caught? This theme of what female intimacy is often portrayed in lesbian texts, for example the beginning of Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Fienberg wrestles with what it means to be intimate with a lover. Ze does this through the reoccurring descriptions about hir lover would take care of hir after traumatic experiences with police, “You drove us home with my head in your lap all the way, stroking my face. You ran the bath. Set out my fresh underwear. Put me to bed. Caressed me carefully. Held me gently” (5). This is a stark contrast from the often overtly sexual images of queers couples, even in films that are made for queer people. This overt sexuality when showing queer relationships is often a result of queer people feeling as though they must validate their relationships with sexual contact. An example of how this operates in real life is when young queer people who have no sexual experience getting asked “How do you know you are really gay if you have never had sex with a guy/girl?”. Furthermore, both Stone Butch Blues and Mosquita y Mari portray queer responses to living in a state that prevents queer people from being “out” of the metaphorical closet that the state has shoved them in.

Not all citizens of Laramie conveyed a negative view towards the LGBT community. Marge Murray, together with some of the citizens, gave a notion of live and let live towards homosexuals. Marge explains,

The death of Matthew Shepard took place in a small town, Laramie, Wyoming. Laramie was known as an equality town, but after the death it was known as a hate crime town. In the article by the New York Times, “Suspect to Stand Trial” the author focused on the trial, while the song by Melissa Etheridge, “Scarecrow” focused on the emotions that came from Matthew’s death.

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