25 Years After Matthew Shepard

Thursday marks 25 years after the death of Matthew Wayne Shepard, a 21-year old University of Wisconsin student who was beaten, tortured, and robbed before being tied to a fence and left to die, by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, on October 6, 1998 in Laramie, WI.

A comatose Shepard was found 18 hours later by police, but six days after the attack he died from his injuries.

McKinney and Henderson pretended to be gay to lure Shepard into their truck, intending to rob him. McKinney tried to use the LGBTQ+ “panic defense” during his trial, which was rejected by the judge.

Shepard’s memorial service was picketed by Westboro Baptist Church, who held up signs saying, among other things “Matt in hell,” “God hates Fags,” and “AIDS cures Fags.” In response, the group “Angel Action” was formed, and began counter protesting WBC wearing white outfits with “wings” for arms, forming a wall around the protesters. The “wall of love” became a trend for counter protesting the WBC’s hateful demonstrations.

Children’s Book By Gay Banned

Read Me a Story, Stella, a picture book by Marie-Louise Gay, was listed as sexually explicit and flagged for removal from the children’s section at Huntsville-Madison County Public Library in Madison, Alabama. What was sexually explicit about it? The author’s last name is Gay. That’s it.

Alabama has passed a ban on trans participation in sports in K-12 schools and two- and four-year higher education institutions. There are bills advancing the anti-LGBTQ+ agenda of the far-right, including adding Drag to the list of sexual material that is illegal for a minor to witness — essentially kicking Drag performances out of public spaces, despite not being inherently sexual in nature.

The ACLU is currently tracking 501 bills introduced in 2023 across 47 states targeting LGBTQ+ folks. At least 84 have been passed, with 14 now being challenged in court. 187 are advancing. 227 have been defeated (including 12 bills introduced in Virginia by Republicans in the House and Senate).

Salim Announces Unity Rally

Saddam Salim, the Democrat running to represent Falls Church and central Fairfax County in the Virginia Senate in this November’s election, has announced a Democratic Unity Rally, which he will host along with guest Albert Vega, the Democrat running for Springfield Supervisor on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, on Sunday, October 22 in the City of Fairfax.

The event is in response to Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax), who Salim defeated in the June primary, endorsing Pat Herrity (R-Springfield) over Vega, in an email on Monday.

Petersen and Herrity both repeated “common sense” ad nauseam — a catch phrase readers may recognize from Petersen’s “Fairfax Commonsense PAC,” which sought to unseat Steve Descano as Commonwealth’s Attorney for Fairfax in the June Democratic primary with Ed Nuttal, whose past political activity certainly looked like that of a Republican, though he ran as a Democrat.

Descano bested Nuttal, though a write-in site for Nuttal has launched. The site claims it is “not authorized or managed by any candidate, PAC and other entities that would be classified as political organizations or groups.” Interestingly, perhaps only to me, this statement doesn’t mention “elected officials who didn’t win their primaries.”

Notably, Herrity always leaves the room during the annual LGBTQ+ Pride month proclamation, which passes unanimously by the rest of the supervisors (who are all Democrats). A variety of excuses have been given, including that he “drank a lot of Diet Coke” (my favorite response, provided by his staff in 2016). Pictured is Herrity’s empty chair during that proclamation.

Petersen also endorsed Saundra Davis for Fairfax Co. School Board. Davis’s campaign site makes no mention of political party or LGBTQ+ rights, however she does mention parent’s rights and transparency a lot, including during a Fox News interview about book banning. These are talking points used heavily by anti-Trans politicians nationwide, largely to promote bills forcing schools to “out” students to their parents or permit choose-your-own-facts education plans that erase LGBTQ+ people from schools.

To be fair, Petersen also endorsed the first elected Trans person in the U.S., Danica Roem (D-Manassas), in her closely contested Senate race.