Murderers now say they perjured themselves five years ago. So what?

I received numerous forwarded press releases from GLAAD all week about tonight's 20/20 program on ABC News, which was being promoted as a re-examination of Matthew Shepard's October 1998 murder.

I watched the program, and I have to say, I'm not impressed with GLAAD's response to it. It seems to me that the obvious point to make in response is that the Matthew Shepard case is only the tip of the iceberg as far as anti-gay violence is concerned - and that queers of color and trans people are those most affected. In Chicago, there have been at least three dozens-of-stab-wounds murders of gay men just in the past year.

However, I'm not sure it's productive to emphasize GLAAD's poor critique of the program. Instead, I'll focus on the outrageous failings of ABC's reporting of this story.

1. Aaron McKinney claims, in the same interview with Elizabeth Vargas, (1) that he started beating Matthew Shepard with his gun right after Matthew put his hand on his leg, and (2) that sexual orientation had nothing to do with the crime. Why didn't Ms. Vargas follow up on this - or even point it out to viewers?

2. Unless I am missing something, not only do the murderers now say they committed perjury five years ago, but so does the girlfriend, who now disputes her previous testimony and comments on 20/20. If everyone is so convinced their story was invented, why isn't she (and they) facing charges?

3. Hello, the information on the Laramie drug scene and on Shepard's drug use and HIV worries is not new. It was first reported less sensationally in Vanity Fair and Harper's five years ago. Why can't ABC News find its own damn stories?

4. The concluding segment of the program is utterly gratuitous. In it, ABC News seems to be trying to compensate for their hour-long apologia for a murder, by touting the awareness and sensitivity that Americans gained from Shepard's death. Why didn't 20/20 even mention the dozens of queers who get murdered every year in bias-related crimes - or the fact that they are disproportionately African American, Latino, and/or transgender people? A viewer might even watch this program without learning that anti-gay hate crimes DO occur, and frequently (a fact that no one seriously disputes). And anti-violence activism has been a priority of the gay movement since at least the 1970s (for more on this, see THE MAYOR OF CASTRO STREET by Randy Shilts).

5. How can Elizabeth Vargas sleep at night knowing her work is so unprofessional and sensationalistic? Jon Stewart did us all a great service when he appeared on Crossfire and told it like it is.