So Matthew Shepard is now a member in good standing of the Martyrs to Hate Crime Hall of Fame. The national attention seems to mark a breakthrough in straight people's willingness to put a human, sympathetic face on queer America. Part of me is ecstatic that a reported 700 people cared enough to come out on a rainy night, on less than 24 hours' notice, for a vigil to remember the life of a complete stranger 1,500 miles away and to express revulsion at his brutal and senseless murder. Vigils were also held in Los Angeles, San Francisco, on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, and 2,000 showed up in his adopted home town of Denver.

But part of me is troubled by this phenomenon, at least in Seattle. Here's why:

The queer community can't have it both ways. We can't say, on the one hand, that Shepard's death is remarkable, and on the other, that lethal gay-bashing is a major societal problem. If it is, why aren't we vigilling every week? Why the reaction to this particular case? In point of fact there have been other vicious gay-bashing deaths that haven't gotten this sort of national attention--but they, too, have been isolated incidents. The real dangers, and hassles, of being gay in a homophobic world are generally much less stark.

OK, so groovy hip liberal Seattle turns out when a gay man is brutally murdered. When a black man was brutally murdered in a small town halfway across the country in a remarkably similar circumstance--clearly motivated by bigotry--a few months ago in Jasper, Texas, there was no such outcry, no lawmakers working the phones as Ed Murray did to turn out vigillers, no repeat promotional announcements on KUOW, no extensive local TV coverage. Why? The answer, or at least one of them, seems obvious: when privileged white gays are scared and angry in Seattle, it's news. When African Americans feel the same things, well, what's new?

The statement being made by those 700 folks is, presumably, that there's still bigotry and hatred in our society. Then why have the turnouts for public events opposing I-200--an initiative premised on the idea that racism no longer exists--been so comparatively sparse?

The vigil was organized in direct conflict with another vigil, three blocks away on Capitol Hill at the same time, that had been planned for weeks. That was for the less popular cause of opposing state killing: namely, to commemorate the assisted suicide of convicted killer Jeremy Vargas Sagastegui, as well as all victims of violence. Due to uncertainty over an appeals court stay of execution, lousy weather, and the conflict with Shepard's vigil, nobody showed up except the organizers and speakers. No media, no vigillers, nobody.

What does this tell us about our priorities? As citizens of Washington State, every one of those 700 or so folks who came out to remember Matthew Shepard were having a murder committed in their names (and with their tax money) that very night. Not one connected the events and chose the public murder yet to happen as the more important one to protest. It raises a host of troubling questions, about what constitutes an "innocent" life, and who decides who deserves to live or die. If it's a couple drunk bar assholes, that's bad, If it's some judge who's a bigoted creep (as some are--and a high proportion of the executed, like Sagastegui, are non-white), that's a death fueled by bigotry, too, but so what?

Which brings us back to hate crimes. Bill Clinton, proving he can still sniff political opportunity when his nose isn't jammed between some intern's thighs, pounced on the Wyoming murders as a chance to promote a federal hate crimes bill, the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. (Which, you'll note, prevents nothing--it merely punishes.) The bill has death penalty provisions. Clinton has already shown he can execute the retarded, so expect that he will play to the crowd by urging that we expand the death penalty yet again to include thugs like the perpetrators in Laramie and Jasper.

The problem is, capital punishment is still murder. What state-sponsored executions lack in messy brutality they make up for in sheer cold-bloodedness. And this raises a troubling question: how much of that vigil's attendance was a recognition of the fragility and sanctity of life, and how much of it was self-centered fear and rage? A racist death penalty is a form of hate crime, too. Such a crime should not, with the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, be celebrated in Matthew Shepard's name.