What Is The Laramie Project Unethical

In Moises Kaufman’s play The Laramie Project , a group of people travel to Laramie, Wyoming to conduct interviews about Matthew Shepard’s horrendous death. These people go into Laramie with the pre-determined notion that it was motivated by Shepards sexual orientation., therefore they are very biased in this way. The media immediatly jumped on this case and made it a hate crime, and ignored all other evidence in the case. By doing this they stayed away from the problems that Shepard had, such as prostitution and Methamphetamine. Later, Stephen Jimenez goes and conducts interviews as-well, but he doesn’t shy away from the truth, or have a pre-conceived idea of what happend. Shepard was not murdered because he was a homosexual, and McKinney

The most obvious reason is that McKinney is allegedly bi-sexual. In Jimenez’s 20/20, he focuses on the outside factors that contributed to this heinous act of violence, rather than the Laramie Project, which only talks to friends/family who immediately assume and believe McKinney and Henderson hate homosexuals. Doc O’Connor is being interviewed about McKinney’s Sexuality, and says “"I know of an instance where he had a three-way, two guys and one gal," and he proves this is true by saying “ He did it with me”(20/20). This shows that McKinney was not homophobic, but in fact enjoyed the company of men, which disproves his “gay panic” defense. McKinney’s girlfriend, Kristen Price, is also interviewed and asked about McKinney’s sexual orientation. Price states that “"He was always into trying to talk me into having a three-way with one of his guy friends," ” (20/20). This is a second source reveling that McKinney is bi-sexual. This accusation, because McKinney denies it, then it proves that McKinney does not hate homosexuals, and did not kill Shepard because Shepard was gay. O’Connor also states that McKinney and Shepard has been involved in a 3-way together. If this is true, McKinney had a previous relationship with Shepard before the murder. This shows that McKinney did not hate Shepard at all, at least not that that time. It also proves that McKinney had no problem with Shepard being gay.

McKinney is asked point blank during the interview if he killed Matthew Shepard because he was gay. McKinney response “No. I did not” and he says “ All I wanted to do was beat him up and rob him” (20/20) At this point McKinney is serving two consecutive life sentences, so he has no reason to lie. This shows that what McKinney is saying can be trusted. He then begins to talk about his gay panic defense, because he just admitted that it wasn’t true. Mckinney’s lawyer developed a gay panic defense by saying “claiming homosexual abuse McKinney suffered as a child caused him to overreact to a sexual advance by Shepard and triggered the violent attack.” and they were “ hoping a Wyoming Jury would be sympathetic to gay panic”(20/20). This was the defense that Mckinney’s lawyers thought would work best for the murderers.The only reason that Henderson and Mckinney went with the “gay panic” defense was because his lawyers advised them too. Most people listen to their lawyers when involved in a high profile case, or any case, so that is what McKinney and Henderson did. Mckinney admits that in court he gave “ false statements “ (20/20) as to why he committed the murder. He says that Shepard never put his hand on his leg, making a move on him, or killed him because of that or his sexual orientation. It was a robbery, that escalated. There is no easier way to prove that this was