Conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh dedicated a portion of his show earlier this week to the “leftist creation” known as “hate crime crap,” and suggested the death of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard was not motivated by hate.
The topic came up in a discussion about Jason Collins‘ debut as the first openly gay athlete to play in a major league sport this week. He wore the number 98 in honor of Shepard.
Limbaugh said:
What we have here is a portion of the play-by-play of the Brooklyn Nets center Jason Collins, the first openly gay player to actually play in a professional sports game. It happened last night. The Brooklyn Nets against the Los Angeles Lakers.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
This is the Nets play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco, as Jason Coll — who by the way took number 98 in solidarity with Matthew Shepard, who was, it’s now been proven didn’t happen, but reputed to have beaten up by a bunch of anti-gay bigots.
As you should already know, Shepard was tortured and brutally murdered in October 1998 after being picked up at a bar by his attackers. Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson used the “gay panic” defense to justify killing Shepard (they were convicted and sentenced to two life terms in 1999), and the ordeal led to the nation’s first federal law specifically protecting LGBTs from hate crimes.
Keep it classy, Rush!
tada-no
Stephen Jimenez a gay investigative journalist who followed Sheppard’s murder case wrote a book called “Book of Matt” where he claims that the murder was not anti-gay related, but it was a fight over drugs/meth and that Sheppard’s killers were not strangers to him. One of the killers had sexual relationship with Matt and they used to do meth together.
Rush Limbaugh is basically using that account to make his anti hate-crime law viewpoints. Even if Sheppard was not murdered in a purely anti-gay rage attack, it does not negate the need for hate-crime laws.
Cam
Yes, we know, every year or two some right winger tries to bring up the discredited story that it was a drug murder, the story has been debunked, even though NOM has tried over and over to use it.
Linbaugh and his right wing bigoted friends desperately have to pretend that they are the victims, and it’s difficult to do if people still have the image in their heads of nearly dead Matthew Sheppard’s broken body attacked to a frozen fencepost with the only portion of his face that could be seen under the blood was the spots where the tear streaks could still be seen.
Sorry that the truth of that interferes with the rhetoric of the bloated Limbaugh, who by the way never went to jail for buying massive amounts of drugs illegally even though folks buying much less have ended up in jail.
Louis
Same shit different day the pig man never makes one iota of rational sane much less logical sense. Back too your trough you disgusting pig you spew enough shit as it is you vile repugnant bastard.
VicIsMe85
Who cares?
ED49
I wish I could run into Rush Limbaugh in a bathhouse; i would have to be hi in something with him, take him to room and have it my way. I would do this for he love I have for this country. A week later I would be on the View,bill o’reilly and all the bs talk shows showing the pictures of him with his legs up in the air getting fisted and rolling his eyes of endless pleasure. Love you Rush hole
Mezaien
Rush Limbaugh, he is an mentally ill as %99 of the whites in the USA are.
Joetx
And Elton John performed at this bloated, hate tick’s FOURTH wedding!
Cam
@Mezaien:
Oh come on, you anti-gay trolls are so obvious. I mean you MUST be one of them, since it was NOM’s leaked memos that their goal was to go onto gay sites and try to incite issues between gays and any minority groups and you are behaving exactly as NOM said they would. So of course you must be one of them right?
ED49
@Cam: It’s true baby love, Elton J. when he saw the amount of money this fat frog would pay for singing the same songs ..he forgot about loyalty t us , the homos. I dont blame him, a $1000000000 was his price to betray, i’m sure you have a price too.;p
coltonblack
Does anyone care what this fat slob has to say – really?
Dan Shill
Why is anyone still listening to anything this bloated, bilious, oxycontin-addled turd has to say, anyway? Go to Hell, Retch Lardball!
jmmartin
@Cam: Thanks, Cam. I worried about that book, thinking Oh, golly, we were overreacting to what only appeared to be a hate crime. But as you and others commenting have suggested, it is not whether it was a hate crime so much as whether the court should have allowed the “gay panic” defense in the first place. We had a buffoon “expert” here (South Texas) who was hired by defense lawyers every time a stud hustler offed a mark. The “expert” was only expert in forensic pathology; in fact, he was a retired county coroner. He would rattle off details of “homosexual murders” and tell juries how vicious they sometimes are, then state that in his professional opinion the defendant simply couldn’t help himself, being in the grip of “homosexual panic.” He defined this as a simultaneous attraction to, and repulsion by, the gay john. The perp simply panicked and became violent. Juries would come back with guilty verdicts but would assess minimal punishments. (In Texas, a defendant may elect to have punishment set by either judge or jury.) Miscarriages of justice were common. This “expert” would go on and on about how homosexuality is “sick…abnormal…degenerate…” etc. and the courts would let him say it. He still writes letters the the local paper on gay issues. Fortunately, he would not be allowed today to testify as he had. A case called Daubert established that his testimony would be inadmissible as “junk science.”
jckfmsincty
Is he back on opioids?
daveku
I really wonder why am I writing this as likely nobody will appreciate what I am saying and probably revert to the typical name calling. After reading these comments, I began yearning for the day when as a society (LGBT and a society as a whole) conducted ourselves with a modicum of decorum. I do not defend Limbaugh’s comments… I expect that from him. What I oppose are the hateful and vitriolic comments directed towards him… bloated, fat, pig headed drug addict, et al.
‘Keep it classy Rush.” Those are words we all can live by. Why is it when we don’t like what we hear, we start the name calling like an 8 yr old school girl who just got her panties in a twist. Have we forgotten how to make an intelligent comment without demeaning the person? If they demean us, do we need to stoop to their level? We’re better than that. We don’t like being called f*gg*t, c*cks*cker, n*gger or whatever, yet it is perfectly fine to throw insensitive words back at others under the guise of a logical argument. It may make you feel better, but in the long run, where does it exactly get us? Nowhere. ‘Keep it classy’.
scoobydube
Just please keep in mind the following THREE words: “Rush. Limbaugh. Said”. Need I say MORE ???????
blondeboyz
Hey Bubba Phat, better lay off the meds. Are you doctor shopping for multiple scripts again?
Cam
@daveku:
I was wondering when one of the sob sisters would come in trying to equate getting upset at a vicious anti-gay bigot, lying, rewriting history and slamming a victim of hate with somebody calling him bloated.
Yes, by all means, lets deflect from the actual topic so you can come up off your fainting couch Aunt Pitty-Pat
daveku
I was worried for a minute. I hope you feel better now.
Cam
@daveku:
I feel fine, I was not the one promoting moral relativism comparing Rush Limbaugh and his demands that gays be made second class citizens to calling him bloated.
Respect4all
Reminds me of an old “Law and Order” episode about neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers. The police captain says “…they deny the Holocaust and celebrate it at the same time.” That’s exactly what Limbaugh and his fellow bigots do with anti-gay discrimination, racism and other forms of hatred.
ait10101
@daveku: But he is a “bloated, fat, pig headed drug addict, et al.” Of course that has nothing to do with the loathsomeness of his remarks, which stand (or slip into the slime) on their own.
Raquel Santiago
I call BS on Limbaugh and will tell him to his face without remorse. I actually done my final paper in Psychology on the Matthew Shepard case. NOM can try to dispute the facts all they way. The evidence speaks for itself, this was a hate crime and Matthew Shepard may his soul continue to rest in peace nor his family deserve this rhetoric comment from him. Im so livid at this guy i cant even type.
RainbowMama
Limbaugh is a moron. He’s a pompous, obtuse, imbecile with an overlarge oral fixation. His words are as meaningless as a newborn baboons guttural reflexes. He is a barbarous jerk who should be stuffed into a large steamer trunk and floated over Niagara falls, flushed like the absolute turd he is.
The world would be a better place without stupidity like his.