The men who work in the mills aren't doing well enough to land the SUVs and the cellular phones that their suburban neighbors have. And although those with polite Western manners would surely die before observing the inequities publicly, you can be sure their husbands and sons are slowly boiling at home. No one would mistake Shepard for a manual laborer, and that alone set him apart. Perhaps a tough kid from Wyoming has an easier time laying blame for his violent anger on a faggot than on fate. And there is perhaps no more marginalized group today than the poor.
Poverty is for losers, for the lazy, for the stupid.
The Internet economy has taught us that wealth is easy. The gay establishment also found it easier to make Shepard's murder a matter of anti-gay hate. Gay leaders exploited the murder, albeit for a good cause, in pushing for passage of the federal hate-crimes law . The only group of people that dislikes examining economic disparity less than the have-nots is the haves. It's easier for us rich white gayfolk, especially, to cast ourselves as the disenfranchised than as the disenfranchisers.