Moises Kaufman is the name of the brilliant mind, which wrote and presented us with such an amazing play titled, “The Laramie Project”. However it must be mentioned that the members of Tectonic Theatre Project, which is a theatre company of New York, America, were also working correspondingly in the respective play. The main theme of the play was shedding light on the inhuman and violent action done in Laramie, of a student Mathew Shepard. Mathew Shepard was a young boy of 20th century who was studying at the University of Wyoming. The reason of his murder was nothing but hatred for the activities of gays. In the respective essay, the detailed analysis of the incident of that gay young college boy, named Mathew Shepard, will be done in order to let the readers decide about whether this was a justified act in the history of America or not.
On the night of the start of October 1998, a young gay boy named Mathew Shepard was brutally assaulted on the streets of the United States of America near the region of Laramie. He was brutally beaten on the side of a fence in a rural area, where at that moment was no one to witness it and help him. The accusers of murder in the case were also two young-aged boys, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. It is reported that Mathew Shepard was going to get a ride from McKinney and Henderson, but this excuse of providing him a ride was nothing but part of a plan to rob him. He was initially reported to be robbed by the pistol but then this robbery made way for the torture towards him.
He was beaten so much inhumanly that there was blood all over his face when his body was recovered by a man named, Aaron Kreifels, who after around eighteen hours of the incident was cycling at that place and saw something like a scarecrow. But upon going near to Shepard, he witnessed a body whose face was covered with blood. According to the statements given by the police officers and Kreifels, the entire face was hidden by the blood, with deep wounds on his body. The only portion which was able to see on his face was, from where the tears ran down to his chin, making a comparatively clearer way for the beneath face skin color. He was not only robbed and beaten but also raped by McKinney and Henderson. When they were asked about how it led to the sexual encounter with him, it was made obvious that because of Shepard being gay, the whole sexual thing was nothing but just a way to lure Shepard out of the vehicle. The intention of both the boys was to rob him, as after leaving him there, they went to Shepard’s home in order to fetch more stuff and money from there.
However, till that time, police became active in what happened, as Shepard was shifted to the hospital, because of being found with severe head and near right ear injury. There was a fracture in the backside of the head and near the right ear, showing the intensity of assault, he faced. Though he was shifted to the hospital, soon as he was recovered, he never managed to come to consciousness and lived on a life support system for six days and eventually died on the 12th of October 1998.
For saving the lives of McKinney and Henderson, their girlfriends also tried to provide ambiguous and wrong statements to the court, ultimately also getting involved in the list of culprits for the incident. Shepard was also identified with the deadly disease of aids being an HIV-positive patient. His mother stated that she got to know about him being HIV positive in the hospital after the incident. Because of being the target of such an insensitive act, robbed, raped, and ultimately left for 19 hours to die on the streets, Mathew Shepard grabbed the attention of millions of people all around the world.
There were people lightening candles on the streets of various areas of the United States of America, in order to show their concern towards Shepard. The incident was made a cause célèbre, which can be better explained as an indication and symbol of hatred and intolerance. This whole case has much significance in the history of
The United States of America, because of it being an indication of inhumanity, ruthless and an act of injustice towards a young gay guy who was also a HIV positive. His head injuries, unacceptable condition and sad incident of death moved the whole society of the United States of America.
This is one of those historical cases of America, which lead to making new hatred laws in the judicial system of the United States of America. Being targeted by Homicide, he was the one, for whom not only the whole United States of America, but a greater population outside the territories of America, cried. The essay is an amazing piece of writing, written to wake up the world, about the brutal incident, which happened to a gay college student. His murder grasped the attention of the whole world, and the authorities of the United States of America were forced after the whole incident to pass a Hate Crimes Prevention Act which is also titled as Mathew Shepard Act. Laramie Project is a must-watch for those who have not followed the incident of Mathew Shepard, in order to know about one of the heart-throbbing occurrences of the past against humanity, tolerance, and hatred, leading to hatred control law in the United States of America.
