Getting to Know the Real Matthew Shepard

[William769]

1998 doesn’t seem that long ago, but in many ways the world was different. For one thing, there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, no YouTube — but one young man’s story caught the attention of the nation in a way that today would be called “going viral.”

The young man was Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay college student who was viciously beaten by two men he’d met in a bar and left hanging on a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, Wyo., then died a few days later at a hospital in Fort Collins, Colo. His death increased the awareness of antigay hate crimes and became a rallying point for supporters of LGBT-inclusive hate-crimes laws and other gay rights measures.

The new documentary film Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine, produced and directed by Matthew’s onetime schoolmate Michele Josue, seeks to let audiences know there were so many things important about Matthew beyond the way he died — and also to make sure that his life and death are not forgotten.

“The young people in the gay community today are having freedoms that he never had,” says his father, Dennis Shepard, on a recent visit to Los Angeles for the film’s opening. “They don’t understand that, especially the very young people, because they don’t know who Matt was. People from 12 on are the activists today.”

http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/film/2015/03/02/getting-know-real-matthew-shepard

[stevenleser]

1. K&R nt

[sheshe2]

2. Never Forget

http://lgbtworld.info/matt-shepard-is-a-friend-of-mine-and-my-son/

[Behind the Aegis]

3. Scarecrow

Showers of your crimson blood
Seep into a nation calling up a flood
Of narrow minds who legislate
Thinly veiled intolerance
Bigotry and hate

But they tortured and burned you
They beat you and they tied you
They left you cold and breathing
For love they crucified you

I can't forget hard as I try
This silhouette against the sky

Scarecrow crying
Waiting to die wondering why
Scarecrow trying
Angels will hold carry your soul away

This was our brother
This was our son
This shepherd young and mild
This unassuming one
We all gasp this can't happen here
We're all much too civilized
Where can these monsters hide

But they are knocking on our front door
They're rocking in our cradles
They're preaching in our churches
And eating at our tables

I search my soul
My heart and in my mind
To try and find forgiveness
This is someone child
With pain unreconciled
Filled up with father's hate
Mother's neglect
I can forgive But I will not forget

Scarecrow crying
Waiting to die wondering why
Scarecrow trying
Rising above all in the name of love

[William769]

6. Thanks for adding this.

[RationalMan]

4. Being a native of Wyoming, Matthew Shepard's violent murder struck me hard..........

I grew up in a Wyoming that was very conservative but not conservative in a religious sense as one finds in the deep south even today. It was a conservatism based on a belief in the rugged individual, hard work and moral values. Those values, while originating in Christian belief, was as much couched in terms of giving the individual space.

But it was nevertheless an environment that was nearly 100% white and Protestant (if you include the Mormons) with a smattering of Catholics thrown into the mix. There was a sizable but largely unseen and unheard Native American population.

So against that backdrop I can see where two men, sensing anything "foreign" and especially anything that might call into question their masculinity would result in anger. I am not excusing it but I am trying to understand it in context.

Whatever happened that evening is both a matter of public record from the trial as well as gossip and innuendo. The bottom line is these two men brutally murdered a young, promising man simply because he was gay. What about his homosexuality enraged them? What about his being who he was gave them a sense they could brutally murder him? I don't know.

That today gay and lesbian couples marry in Wyoming is a clear sign of progress. But we cannot be complacent it is a sign of progress of law and not of hearts and minds.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

7. yes. well said.

[daleanime]

5. K&R....

[Sissyk]

8. K&R

[hopemountain]

9. never to be forgotton

my family in laramie - still speak of matthew and what he endured to this day.

[brer cat]

10. Never forget.

K&R

[marym625]

11. and people of Laramie tried hard to change the conversation

They still do. Saying, "oh no one cared that Matthew was gay. The killers said that was the reason because they thought they would get a lighter sentence. It was really drugs."

Fuck them. Liars, every last one.