September 12, 2009

Steve Rothaus
The Miami Herald
One Herald Plaza
Miami, Florida 33132-1693

RE: Matthew Shepherd & Jesse Dirkhising – Some comments on your article in today’s Miami Herald.

Mr. Rothaus,

Why brush up against the 3rd rail of American culture, that rail being the one that says remarks critical of any aspect of homosexuality will not be tolerated, when you can do a back flip right on to it?

Mathew Shepherd – and please, please correct me if any of my facts are wrong – was a 21 year old homosexual who was picked up by 2 heterosexuals in a bar that catered to homosexuals. They tortured him, “pistol whipped” him as you say, and left him to die tied to a fence.

Jesse Dirkhising – and please, please correct me if any of my facts were wrong – was an 11 year old boy, thus a pre-teen and legally incapable of consenting to any sexual activity be it heterosexual or homosexual, was kidnapped by 2 predatory homosexuals. For 2 days they raped and sodomized him. They suffocated him by stuffing rags soaked with drain cleaner into his mouth.

Which one is more dead?

Why was one a victim of a “hate crime” while the other was not? I’ll end the suspense. The 21 year old bar hopper is now in the hagiography of victims. The 11 year old is in free fall down the memory hole

You end your article by praising Matthew Shepherd’s mother who says “she’ll keep fighting until the Federal law is in place and gays have full protections”. I may be showing my naïveté but do you think any law could have prevented the murder of Matthew Shepherd? What law could have protected Jesse Dirkhising?

The Kellogg-Briand Treaty outlawed naval warfare. Why did the Japanese and the German navies try to sink the ship my wife’s father sailed on? There are a large number of laws that cover bank robberies. Banks still get robbed.



“How sad of all the things that men endure
how few laws or kings can cause or cure.”

There is no law against the moral and intellectual dry rot of “eclectic indignation”. It allows you to mourn the loss of Matthew Shepherd while forgetting the death of…of the kid what’s his name.

One will wind up on a stamp; the other will soon need Goggle and a GPS system to bring his tale of woe to light.

I’ll say a prayer for the repose of the souls of both.





Kevin Smith