The Crucifixion of Matthew Shepard

The motivations behind the torture and public display of Matthew Shepard on a fence outside Laramie, Wyoming, have much in common with the reasons the Roman Imperium crucified thousands of its subjects two millennia ago. Many of those who protested its exploitation and cruelty, or were merely caught in the wake of a protest, were tied or nailed to crossbars and permanent stakes (occasionally, an X-shaped framework) where they died slowly over a period of days from thirst, suffocation, exposure and wounds. These horrors were not private; they took place beside public roads as a warning to others who might challenge the imperial power. Like the Latin American governments of the 1970s and 1980s who dumped tortured bodies at night along the streets for the populace to see next morning, the Romans practiced state terrorism.

Besides the intent to consolidate their power, there was another element in their motivation; we might call it, very roughly, maintaing the walls of caste. Social structures are created by human beings in society, but human beings need to see at least some of them as decreed by fate or Deity. For the Romans and the Latin American oligarchs, overlords must remain overlords; lesser beings must bow and obey. And not only for overlords, but for most of those who find society relatively comfortable as it is, uppity inferiors who stand erect and declare themselves fit to decide their own destiny are blurring the boundaries; they are questioning the unquestionable. To propose that social ranking is arbitrary and unjust is to breach a frail seawall protecting us from a tidal wave of chaos. Such upstarts are the ultimate danger, an abomination.

The crucifixion of Shepard also has much in common with the lynchings of African-Americans from Reconstruction days onward to enforce the system of racial caste. Uppity "niggers" have been tortured, shot, hanged, or even burned at the stake to protect white-dominated social structures. As a teenager during the days of the Little Rock school integration events, I remember seeing a news picture of white protesters carrying a sign saying "Save Our Christian America." Since I had always assumed that Christianity was inseparable from racial justice, I could only stare, flabbergasted. It took me decades to become aware that what the carriers of the sign were trying to save from this perceived abomination were the distorted religious foundations that supported the only society that they knew.

These sociological reflections may help to cast light on the seemingly gratuitous cruelty of the killers' attack on a small, unassuming gay, a stranger to them. An iron barrier of caste is supposed to separate the behavior of the sexes: males initiate and control, females respond and submit. But gays blur the boundaries; they betray their upper-caste status as males by behavior appropriate to females. Such mutants shouldn't exist, and they certainly shouldn't stand up and declare themselves in public. They are an abomination. But what the killers could not see is the patent fact that the abomination lay in their own actions.

People who are pronouncedly dependent on traditional structures vary in the extent of their dependence, from the reluctantly flexible to those who reel inwardly with dimly-felt terror at the slightest deviation. The seemingly powerful action taken by Shepard's killers is a measure of the depth of their weakness. There are multitudes of conservatives disturbed by any blurring of the boundaries of gender behavior, who would prefer that there be no gays or lesbians, but deplore violent solutions and instead urge conversion by psychotherapy or religious experience. It is understandable that they do not want to be lumped with sadistic killers. Unhappily, however, as long as a vocal contingent of society proclaims that same-sex relations are a sin and an abomination, an aggressive fringe will be encouraged to enact their violent solution to the perceived problem.

There is an important difference between the crucifixion of Matthew Shepard and those carried out by the Roman legions. The soldiers, as agents of the state, not only did their gruesome work openly but under orders camped out around the crosses as long as necessary to prevent the victims' friends and family from attempting a rescue. Shepard's killers, however, were undercover terrorists, in violation of law. The United States may have supported state terrorism in El Salvador, but we do not maintain torture centers for gays, nor do we provide advisors and funds for anti-gay terrorists.

Thus, despite the high level of violence in the United States, we have an advantage; let us strengthen our society by building upon it. We need to enact laws to protect the vulnerable, the people who find themselves on the borders or who go there in solidarity. Sanctions against violence must be enforced, but to punish unofficial violence with state violence is to inflame an already violent atmosphere. Let us be as much better than the Romans as we are able, bearing in mind always that we do not know the secrets of life and of death. J.R.R. Tolkien's character Gandalf put it well, speaking of the multiple murderer Smeagol: "Deserves death? I dare say he does. Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the very wise cannot see all ends."