Veteran former CBC correspondent and freelance journalist Joseph Couture, recently conducted a series of interviews with the citizens of Laramie, Wyoming on the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's murder.
Conversations with Laramie
Photo Courtesy of Joseph Couture
By Joseph Couture (London, Ontario) Oct 10 | Some people want to silence their critics. Not me. That’s the last thing I want to do. I want to know who my enemies are and you can only find that out if you let people speak so you can hear what they say about you.
That’s what I did. I wanted to know if the residents of Laramie, Wyoming where Matthew Shepard was murdered were any more or less homophobic than anyone else in America. So I asked them.
I got out the Laramie phone book and randomly called people listed in the white pages. What they told me was startling.
The first thing I discovered was that there were an awful lot of people who didn’t want to talk about this. About a quarter of the people I called hung up on me when I told them what I wanted to discuss. About another twenty five percent politely or abruptly declined to speak with me.
What the rest of them had to say is the subject of my Pod cast, “Conversations with Laramie,” linked here below.
I have to admit that I rather expected a large amount of anti-gay vitriol. But I didn’t find it. No one I talked to said anything horrific about gays. It’s not because I don’t think a few of them didn’t want to, but they weren’t fool enough to say it to a reporter.
Mostly, what I found was arguably a rather typical range of opinion, from pure indifference to polite disagreement. I also discovered a rather pleasant abundance of kind, supportive and compassionate people living in Laramie.
I also discovered a population weary of scrutiny. The citizens of Laramie are sick to death of the subject of Matthew Shepard, the endless media attention and the controversy that goes with it. They are also most certainly feed up with being portrayed as hateful redneck bigots and were quick to say so.
Another reason I did this was to honour the legacy of Matthew Shepard’s name and to make sure that he was not forgotten. There’s no chance of that in Laramie. Every single person I called knew who Matthew was. They may not have wanted to talk about it, but they certainly were aware of it.
Ultimately, I don’t know if the endless discussion and debate lead to a more tolerate society in Laramie, but it certainly has lead to an unparalleled level of awareness. That alone has to mean something.
Now the residents of Laramie have a few things of their own that they want to make the rest of the world aware of. This is their turn. Here’s what they have to say to us.
Please visit Joseph at www.josephcouture.com
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