Matthew Shepard and Billy Jack Gaither Comparison Essay

“Every person in this earth has a unique view of the world, which is shaped by specific community and environment. In “The Laramie Project” by Moisés Kaufman and The Symposium: Hate Crimes Legislation by Elizabeth Birch and Paul Weyrich discussed over some similarities and differences between this two text by how each of the stories focuses on the comparison of their lifestyle in the purpose created to reveal about their core ideas. “The Laramie Project” educates people about hate crime much more than “The Symposium: Hate crime legislation”.

In the Laramie project, Matthew Shepard was an openly-gay university student in Laramie, Wyoming who passed away on October 6, 1998. The two suspects were arrested shortly after Matthew’s death. The author on The Laramie Project uses imagery in the play when Aaron discovered Matthew’s body, he describes him as being almost like a scarecrow and this shows how much hate, in general, has negatively influenced a person’s life. The author use foreshadowing when Jedadiah Schultz said “I want to study theater”. Moises Kaufman says, “There is an obvious conflict between those who live a gay lifestyle and those who live a straight lifestyle.” Themes in this story included mostly hate-crimes, homosexuality, and Aids.

In the other hand Billy Jack Gaither is a thirty-nine-year-old gay man who worked at the Russell Athletics apparel company in Sylacauga, Alabama, who was beaten to death, his throat was cut and his body was bludgeoned with an ax handle before he was found dead on top of a pile of tires and burned alive on February 19, 1999. The author uses imagery making the reader imagine what it was like to see how brutal the murder was. The author says “A survey by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs reports that in anti-gay hate crimes in 1998, guns used during assaults grew 71 percent; ropes and restraints, percent; vehicles, 150 percent; and blunt objects, clubs, and bats, 47 percent” (Birch) This survey shows what types of items and their percentages that have been used in the year of 1998. Gaither and Shepard have few in common like how they both drive several miles just to find happiness in big-city gay bars to escape momentarily the anti-gay attitudes in the small towns.

In conclusion the comparison between two text: The Laramie project and hate crime legislation reveal their core ideas to what the techniques and meaning the author used to describe brutal murder that was committed on the Twenty-one year old openly-gay university student Matthew Shepard and the thirty-nine-year-old gay man Billy Jack Gaither who worked at the Russell Athletics apparel company. From the two texts, the Laramie project did a better job because it has better word choice and a lot better description This similarities and differences matter because it helps the reader to understand the issue or the problem more clearly and also it helps them visualize it by picturing it in a different mindset. What role Shepherd’s and Gaither’s play as sexual orientation played as a motive in the commission of the crime and make hate crime against the law. “The Laramie Project” educates people about hate crime much more than “The Symposium: Hate crime legislation”. From the two texts, the Laramie project did a better job because it has better word choice and a lot better description.”

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