Navigating Hate: The Public Deliberation of Matthew Shepard and Hate Crime Legislation

<p>Since Matthew Shepard’s murder in 1998, his narrative has been recirculated to justify a federal hate crime statute and Shepard has been used as a symbol for the demand for hate crime legislation. This study seeks to evaluate how Shepard is used in public deliberation, the role of private organizations in the public deliberation of hate crime legislation, and the discursive history of the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crime Prevention Act of 2009. Through a rhetorical criticism, this study finds that the nuances of Shepard’s narrative are abandoned in order to construct him as a “permissible” symbol for LGBTQ+ protections. However, if the permissibility of the symbol is violated, the discourse surrounding Shepard becomes polemic. Second, I argue that private organizations are not only used to advocate on the behalf of private citizens, but in the case of hate crime prevention organizations, they are dually asked with being the primary center of information for private citizens. Finally, I argue that the legislative discourse surrounding HCPA’s communicate to the public the government’s position on the inclusion of vulnerable communities.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2020

Author dc:creator

• Barnes, Abigail

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Paul Strait
• Dr. Laura Alberti
• Dr. Laura Stengrim

• hate crime
• Matthew Shepard
• LGBTQ+
• public sphere
• rhetoric
• social movements
• hate crime legislation
• HCPA
• Critical and Cultural Studies
• Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication
• Speech and Rhetorical Studies

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/788

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1841