The story of Matthew Shepard is one to be remembered.
A young man in the prime of his life was brutally murdered based on his sexuality.
Here is an article written the day of his death in 1998.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E7DB173AF930A25753C1A96E958260
The beating and killing of Shepard created an uproar, as stated in the article. It was said that it resembled a crucifixion which I find highly ironic.
I'm not sure of the policies now but at the time of the murder, 19 states did not include sexual orientation in their hate crime laws. That is outrageous.
Matthew Shepard's story changed a lot around the country. People banned together.
A foundation was created by Matthew's parents in honor of their son and his aspirations. In the story of the Foundation on it's website you can find the background on Matthew's murder as well as the reasons for starting the Foundation. The Foundation seeks to “Replace Hate with Understanding, Compassion & Acceptance.”
http://www.matthewshepard.org/our-story
My reason for bringing up something that may seem to only have affected our nation over a decade ago is because there is still major talk of it today. After his death, there was a play created about his story called The Laramie Project.
Tomorrow night a town near my hometown called Howell, MI is putting on The Laramie Project. I plan to attend, obviously. Now the interesting part is that members from the Westboro Baptist Church apparently plan on being there to protest the performance. I imagine this will make for some interesting conversation.
I will make sure to fully report what I find out and who I talk to.
Whenever people are killed, for whatever reason, it is a tragedy. This is no exception. I had heard of Matthew Shepard before, and it is a sad story.
ReplyDeleteThe Westboro Baptist Church has not earned a good name for themselves or represented Christianity as a whole well in, well, anything. Therefore I'm not surprised that they would feel the need to protest this. It's one thing to believe homosexual behavior is wrong and another to go out and make public disruptions like that.