(no subject)
i just ran across this and thought it was well worth posting.
Mathew Wayne Shepard
December 1st, 1976 - October 12th 1998
The funeral has taken place in the United States of Matthew Shepard, a 21 year-old student, who was savagely beaten to death because he was gay. Friends and family gathered in pouring rain at the church in the town of Casper, Wyoming, where he was baptised.
Matthew had been lured from a campus bar shortly after midnight on October 7 by two men who told him they were gay. He was driven to a remote area near the Sherman Hills neighbourhood east of Laramie, tied to a split-rail fence, tortured, beaten and pistol-whipped by his attackers, while he begged for his life; he was then left for dead in near freezing temperatures. A cyclist who found him on Snowy Mountain View Road at 6:22 pm, some 18 hours after the attack, at first mistook him for a scarecrow. He was unconscious and suffering from hypothermia. His face was caked with blood, except where it had been partially washed clean by tears.
Matthew died at 12:53 am on Monday 12th October 1998, at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, with his family at his bedside. Hospital officials said Matthew had a fracture from behind his head to just in front of his right ear and a massive brain stem injury which affected his vital signs, including his heart beat, body temperature and other involuntary functions. There were also approximately a dozen small lacerations around his head, face and neck. He was so badly injured in the attack that doctors were unable to operate. He never regained consciousness after being found, and remained on full life support.
While Matthew lay dying in hospital, just a few miles away, a group of students from Colorado State University thought it would be funny to ride atop a homecoming float that featured a scarecrow figure designed to resemble Matthew's battered body. The figure was wearing a sign that said "I'm gay." An obscene message was painted across the back of the scarecrow's shirt. The students didn't mean to be insensitive. It was supposed to be a joke. They were just ordinary, average guys, having a bit of fun.
Matthew was born Dec. 1, 1976, in Casper, and was the oldest son of Judy Peck Shepard and Dennis Shepard. While living in Casper, he attended Crest Hill Grade School, Dean Morgan Junior High, and completed his sophomore year in Natrona County High School. He was a member and an acolyte in St. Mark's Episcopal Church.
He attended the last two years of high school at the American School in Switzerland, where he graduated in 1995. After graduation from high school, he attended Catawba College in Salisbury, N.C.,and Casper College. He then moved to Denver, where he had several jobs. He was a first- year political science major at the University of Wyoming in Laramie at the time of his death.
He enjoyed the theatre and had parts in several Casper College and Stage III Theater plays. He liked soccer, swimming, running, camping, hunting, fishing and snow skiing; as well as dancing and theatre.
Matthew was gentle of demeanour and passionate about human rights and foreign relations. Friends described him as a small man - 5-foot-2, 110 pounds - with a big heart. "He would do anything for anybody".
Matthew was killed to make a point. His fragile, broken body was left strung up like an animal as a clear message to gay men everywhere. How can someone be so consumed with hatred for a fellow human being that atrocities like this happen? Why is homosexuality even an issue? Why does it excite such feelings of hatred and violence in people, when their lives will never be touched by it? Why is a person's sexuality anyone else's business; and who are we to judge other people?
Part of the answer, at least, lies in a culture that ridicules gay men, and dehumanises them, so that their lives are seen to have less value. It starts with verbal taunts in the school playground, and leads to the persecution of people because of their sexual orientation. There is a climate of hatred in society which encourages murderers to act. This was a hate crime, and Matthew was brutally attacked, and left there to bleed his life away, simply because of who he was.
But Society's antipathy towards gay men does not lead everyone to commit violent acts against them. What is it about the mostly young male perpetrators of anti-gay hate crimes which causes them to react with such irrational violence? Do they feel threatened? If a straight man is secure in his sexual identity, and is secure in his masculinity, how can he feel threatened? There is no reason why straight men should have a problem with homosexuality.
Gay-bashers are psychologically disturbed individuals, who may even be closet cases themselves. They may have deep feelings of insecurity about their own sexuality. They may be wrestling with homosexual impulses of their own, and instead of being able to accept those feelings, they project their own self-loathing onto a gay victim. The deep hatred is clear from the way in which Matthew was killed. Did his tormentors, somehow, feel superior because they were able to do this to him?
One of the ways of combating bigotry and prejudice is to start in our schools. Just as people can be taught hatred and intolerance, so, too, can they be taught respect for those who may be different from themselves; and to value people equally, regardless of gender, colour, disability, sexual orientation, religious preference, national origin, ancestry, or age.
Critics will try to claim that this amounts to promoting homosexuality. You cannot teach someone to be homosexual - it is not a conscious choice made by an individual - but you can teach tolerance and understanding.
Some parents may say, "Well, so what? This issue doesn't affect me. My son isn't gay". The fact is, that while there remains some sympathy in society with those who carry out these violent assaults, your son does not have to be gay in order to be beaten up or murdered. It is enough for someone to think that he might be.
While the law continues to discriminate against gay and lesbian people, it will be seen to justify and legitimise the prejudices of the few. If the law discriminates, why shouldn't they? Gay people have the right to equal treatment under the law, and to live their lives free from fear, discrimination and prejudice. There should be an equal age of consent for gay men, and an end to other forms of discrimination, for example, in the workplace, and in housing.
I have found myself deeply moved by this senseless tragedy. Let our thoughts be with Matthew, and with his family, and let us commit ourselves, in our daily lives, to ending the hatred. Tears will be shed in Heaven, not only for Matthew, but for those who preach hatred and intolerance, and who incite people to violence in the name of God.
As the world tries to make sense out of Matthew Shepard's death, perhaps his most important act was his life. He had the courage to be true to himself, and for that he paid a terrible price.