Conservative commentators are alleging that the media made a martyr out of Matthew Shepard for being gay, while the media ignored the rape and murder of a 13-year-old Arkansas boy by two allegedly gay men.

They say the news media is unwilling to publicize crimes committed by homosexuals because it is controlled by a bunch of gay-loving liberals only too happy to wield a double standard. Baloney.

A red herring worth addressing at the outset is the failure to distinguish between homosexuality and pedophilia, which creates a false parallel at the core of this argument.

A double standard would be in effect had the media ignored a situation where two gay men killed a straight man for being straight. But sex with children is a crime regardless of the sexes involved and is not synonymous with homosexuality.

An even bigger difference between the Shepard case and this one, however, is that Shepard’s murderers were driven to kill by bigotry, while the boy’s rape and death was an all-too-common sex crime.

Essentially, Shepard was lynched. And while child abuse is unfortunately no big news, lynching still is. Shepard’s killers were bullies who gratuitously killed someone out of hate for being different than they were.

Shepard’s murder touches on a host of complex and timely issues. The child’s death is nothing but the depravity of two sick men. There are no lessons there, no moral of tolerance, no hope to be gleaned in the punishment of the perpetrators.

To be somehow equated with these monsters would be a bitter legacy indeed for Matthew Shepard.

William C. Stosine

Resident

Iowa City