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CRMJ 415 Week 3 Assignment Critical Thinking Analysis-
Gay Bashing
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thinking-analysis-gay-bashing
Critical Thinking Analysis (40 points)
Gay Bashing
TCOs:
4
1
Defining deviance, types of deviance
Criminal behavior, violence
Case: Matthew Shepard, a young homosexual man who was a student at the University of
Wyoming, died on October 12, 1998 of severe injuries received from a brutal and prolonged
attack by two other young men he met in a bar six days earlier. Shepard’s two attackers were
Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, to whom he admitted he was gay. Pretending to
befriend him, they instead transported him to a rural area, tied him to a barbed wire fence,
tortured and beat him and then left him. Many hours later a passerby found him clinging to
life. He died in the hospital within the week. McKinney and Henderson, in possession of a
bloodied gun and some of Shepard’s possessions, were arrested following his death and
charged with murder. At trial they first claimed the gay panic defense (temporary insanity) and
later argued that they had only intended to rob him but things go out of hand. Their girlfriends
testified that the two men stalked Shepard and that both were sober. Each was convicted of
felony murder and sent to prison.
Shepard’s parents became tireless advocates against gay bashing, a form of homophobia
defined as verbal and/or physical harassment or assault of people who are perceived to be
lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered. The word “perceived” is important: there have been