Something else consistently under-(or virtually non-)reported: domestic violence amongst gay and lesbian couples; lesbian on non-lesbian woman assault including rape. Yes even in little ol’ Oz.

All sin. All sorts of people commit all sorts of crimes. Sadly, sometimes even we Christians - although I would hope that we are under-represented in the crime stakes.

I agree with your assessment of media power and not looking to the media as representing what is important in the world much less what is really happening in the world - not unless you read from a variety of sources to piece together the story. The internet can be a positive tool in that sense as you yourself know.

Agreed, “hate crimes” were a hot topic around the time Matthew Sheppard was beaten and murdered in 1998 - partly fuelled by gay activists and media types who focussed on the fact Shepard was gay. Mary Stachowicz was beaten, raped, sodomised, murdered in 2002. But if you check the reaction on some of the discussion boards and forums, you will read some prize vitriole against Christians akin to saying she had it coming to her. No one seemed to start crying about hate crimes against Catholic Christians.

Personally I don’t care what people say, a rape is a rape, a murder is a murder and the killers have to be brought to justice; the danger with SOME activists stirring up the pot with regard to hate crimes is exactly what we have seen in the defenses advanced in both the Sheppard and Stachowicz cases: attempts at avoiding full responsibility for one’s actions, shifting blame on the victim, utter nonsense. Why so defense lawyers think they can get away with that sort of stupid reasoning?

That in one case that nonsense caused outrage and in another it was met with silence says something too, not just about the prevailing debates around the time (fuelled by media), political correctness gone mad, but also about “blind” justice.

I didn’t think a gay person would have it in them to sexually assault a woman. Be a psychopathic murderer, yes, sexually assault a man, yes, but sexually assault a woman?

Well there you go.

As for the varying media coverage given to different crimes……if you try and work that out..you will go certifiably insane.

For example, why journalists are fixated on the Peter Falconio/Joanne Lees thing and the Dianne Brimble cases…just mystifies me..

I’ve also noticed that murders of housewives in Australia that result from domestics…don’t get anywhere near the coverage of the murder of a pretty young thing who was single and was presumably available….(eg..a nurse).

And Snowtown would have been a much, much bigger national story, if it had happened in Sydney or Melbourne, instead of South Australia.

I think what happens in the US..is because there are so many murders in so many states….an editor for a national news organisation plucks one out at random to highlight on a slow news day..and dumb journalists who can’t think for themselves go into ‘we haven’t got that story’ panic mode, and then competition develops to get the latest angle on the same story.

A good recent example of this here was the babies in Perth who had their feet tied together at a child care centre.

We kept offering the story to our national network and they weren’t the slightest bit interested..UNTIL…Sky News, on a slow news night, out of the blue, started leading with it.

Then the national network HAD to have it …and were pestering us to make sure we had the latest angle on it…whereas hours before they weren’t interested in it at all.

Do not underestimate the power of someone in a national news organisation to make a completely random news judgement about a story, and for that to start a media feeding frenzy….

Plus, I can remember the Matthew Shepherd thing was going around in the context of a debate in the US about hate crimes laws, so you can’t strip the story from its context at the time.

If the Mary Stachowicz story had happened today, then it would be more likely to get a run, because, of all things, the Ted Haggard saga

For the religious right though, to argue that they’re getting a raw deal in the random story stakes is just bullshit.

They got a pretty good run out of the Terry Shiavo case, which when you look at it..is just one example of a distressing and difficult decision faced by hundreds of families everywhere..every week.

Hot tip for young players, do not look to the media as representing what is important in the world.

As I’m writing this today, it’s a slow news day, so it’s a ripe setting for something that doesn’t deserve much coverage to be pounced on by bored journalists.

Mary Stachowicz will return about 24600 hits. Mary was stabbed, strangled, and beaten, and then her body was stuffed in a crawl space under the floor of an apartment - by a gay man. The prosecution has indicated she was also raped. Presumably because Mary Stachowicz, a Catholic mother, told him he should stop sleeping with men and this reminded him of his mother or something so he went off into a rage. His defense, in tactics not unlike the defense used in the Shepard case, employed the politically correct: Anti-homophobe Panic Defense. I guess any outrage at that stupidity is now not allowed. Why is that?

THe same reasons why the chances of you hearing about gay men raping women: political correctness gone mad. Because gays are always the victims never responsible for anything but sweetness and light. Etc etc.

That gay men do rape women (and that most proponents of male rape are actually heterosexual men) is indicative again how much rape is more about power and rendering powerless. And it is indicative that all men and women sin.

And if me telling you that makes me a bigot, than I guess, that too, proves my point.

Google up “Mary Stachowicz”
And then google up “Matthew Shepard”.

Then no longer ask yourself why.