Last month, when Charles Gibson was given the job as ABC television evening news anchor rather than Elizabeth Vargas, who had been sharing the job with Bob Woodruff, many women's organizations protested loudly. They complained that Vargas was demoted because she was pregnant and alleged this corporate action of this kind sends a message to women that they can't expect to enjoy both a career and a family.
Gay men, however, had a different take on the news.
To understand, go back eight years to Laramie, Wyoming, where 22-year-old college student Matthew Shepard was beaten with a .357-Magnum pistol, tied to a fence, and left to die. Two men, Aaron McKinney and Russell A. Henderson, were charged with the murder, and both eventually confessed to one of the nation's most foul hate crimes of the last decade.
Now fast-forward six years to 2004 and Elizabeth Vargas's segment about the case on the ABC news magazine 20/20. In it, Vargas questioned whether the Shepard murder was indeed a hate crime, or simply a drug robbery gone bad.
To do this, despite claims of new evidence, Vargas created a segment in which she broke no new news, in which her sympathy lay with the killers rather than the victim, and in which she actually created an environment where the viewers, too, might feel sympathy for the killers -- they were being vilified for a hate crime they didn't commit.
Vargas falsely asserted the crime was predicated on drugs rather than homophobia, disregarding the evidence from the trial as well as McKinney's own words. She also claimed that McKinney might have been bisexual (although there is no proof to that; even in an interview with Vargas herself, McKinney denies ever having sexual contact with another man.) But her point seemed to be that a person can't commit a hate crime against a gay person because, well, if he sleeps with men, he could hardly hate any of them.
The piece was riddled with inaccuracies and lies. It was also produced in such a way as to prevent any comments that might contradict Vargas's presentation. The only gay man allowed to comment on air was right-winger Andrew Sullivan, whose own homophobia is almost a hate crime per se.
Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother, went on record to protest the show, "The whole string of the show not having one single person dispute what they say was just terrible.... all that ended up on the cutting room floor. They were interested only in people who conform to their position" The piece was widely ridiculed -- except, of course, by the New York Times' TV critic Virginia Heffernan -- and it was abhorred by the gay community.
It's hard to explain how important Matthew Shepard is to the gay community, particularly to gay men, who are seldom allowed either heroes or martyrs. It's also hard to explain how frightening it is that violence against gays continues to rise, and that the current regime in the White House is only aiding that violence with its emphasis on enshrining bigotry in the U.S. Constitution.
Rather than learn from such a crime, people like Vargas disparage it. So more disturbing to many gay men than Vargas's demotion is that in all the hubbub, not a single women's organization seems to remember that Vargas was responsible for what may have been one of the worst pieces ever to run on an otherwise outstanding show.
The National Organization for Women and other groups protesting Vargas' demotion might find more allies if they didn't advocate for homophobes. Either they didn't do their homework, which is shoddy, or they don't care, which is sad.