WATCH: Judy Shepard on hate crimes bill, Rep. Virginia Foxx
May 1, 2009
Watch Judy Shepard on Rachel Maddow to discuss the hate crimes legislation - and respond to North Carolina Congresswoman Virginia Foxx's statement during the House floor debate that her son Matthew's death was "a hoax":
In response to Foxx, Judy said:
I did not expect it to ever be called a "hoax." Anyone who's done any research into what happened to Matt knows that it was a hate crime even though, technically, we couldn't prosecute it that way because there was no hate crime law in Wyoming at all - and no federal hate crime law protecting sexual orientation. We couldn't call it a hate crime - but it was.
Yesterday, HRC President Joe Solmonese sent a letter to Rep. Foxx demanding that she apologize to Judy Shepard for disparaging Matthew's death as a hate crime. Foxx later issued a statement backing away from her House floor comments, saying that using hoax "was a poor choice of words." As she made clear on Maddow's show, Judy isn't convinced:
It's apologizing for semantics, not for her sentiment or actually what she said, her insensitivity and her ignorance. She's apologizing for semantics.
comments powered by Disqus
