Good thing or a bad thing?

Scarecrow crying
Waiting to die wondering why
Scarecrow trying
Angels will hold carry your soul away

Melissa Etheridge "Scarecrow"

So it turns out that it wasn't what we all thought it was. This week, for the first time, one of the men charged with murdering Matthew Shepard went on record explaining what happened. When telling his story he explained that it actually had nothing to do with the fact that Shepard was gay. They were addicts, they were craving and had no drugs or money and saw that Matt did. They got him alone to steal his money and then beat him senseless due to their own lack of control and then ditched the body.

No more a hate crime than any other murder is a hate crime.

Now I guess there is the possibility that this is spin, that they feel that they will have a better chance at whatever sentencing or parole or whatever if the act turns out to be a product of addiction, of disease, rather than of ignorance or hate. In that case I think this is just another despicable chapter in the story. I mean if you are going to be a bigot and do the hard work of being a bigot, well then you ought not soften up just when its your moment to step up and take the blame. That's when you are supposed to revel in your commitment to "the cause," whatever misplaced, ignorant, craziness that might be. Hiding from it now is so... dissappointing.

I wonder more about what to do if it isn't spin. I mean if this was just a robbery and a murder would we have ever even heard about it? A mugging gone bad in rural Wyoming? What about Melissa's song, and Moises Kaufman's play, and the HBO movie of the play? All for... what? Are the messages of those artworks less important if the underlying event has been misinterpreted? I can't think of another parallel to compare this to to try to frame the question. Certainly the message is more powerful based on true events than it would be if it had been simply a fictional story, but based on a story that was false, what does that say?

A more broad hypothetical: What if say three years from now we find out that the 9/11 bombings were not about Islamic extremism at all but were actually something to do with currency, markets, and defense contractors; that Osama Bin Laden was actually working as a front for some huge multinational. That would certainly seem to me to undermine all of our actions afterward and would certainly seem that the ire directed at Islamic extremists was misplaced.

So if an attack we thought was based on homophobia turned out to be simple robbery is there a similar problem with the reaction?

I think not.

In rising up against hatred and homophobia we were rising against something that is inherently wrong. That the rallying event was misinterpreted may be unfortunate or embarrassing, and the songs may drop out of rotation, and the play may not be performed again, but the activism although erroneously spotlighted is still built on a strong foundation, is still important, and still speaks the truth.

Perhaps this should be another rally point. Perhaps we should not look back and report the mistake, but rather take this as an opportunity to add new fuel to the cause, energy to replace that which will be lost to this current spin. Melissa should write a new song, Kaufman should write a new play, HBO should do a new movie, all calling attention to the problem that is still there whether Matt Shepard was killed for money or for who he was.

This news isn't a good thing or a bad thing, its just a thing.

(and now I am left to wonder about the inherent rightness or wrongness of a reation to Islamic extreemism too - maybe that was a poor hypothetical)