A death so brutal

In October 1998, Matthew Shepherd was beaten, tortured, tied to a post and left to die by two men he met in a bar. It has been twenty-four years since Matthews murder and Wyoming still doesn’t have a hate crimes law on the books. Why not?

No body should die in the manner in which Matthew did. It was the dental brace. That’s how Judy and Dennis Shepard knew it was their son in the hospital bed. “Bandages and stitches all over his face,” Judy says, “and bandages around his head where the final blow had crushed his brain stem. “His fingers and toes were curled in a comatose position already. Tubes everywhere enabling his body to stay alive.

Shepard now rests in the crypt of the neo-Gothic edifice, alongside the likes of former President Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller, the pioneering deaf-blind academic, and George Dewey, the 19th Century naval officer for whom the rank of admiral of the navy was created. At the time of his death, Judy says, he was just putting his life back together after being sexually assaulted on a high school trip to Morocco. Shepard was gang-raped there by some locals.

At trial, McKinney’s lawyers argued that Shepard had made their client fly into a rage by touching his leg. But the judge dismissed this “gay panic” claim. Such a legal strategy — where criminal defendants in cases of violent assault argue they were provoked by an unwanted same-sex sexual advance — is still admissible in all but three US states, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law. Sheriff O’Malley rejects any attempt to downplay the anti-gay element in the murder. But why would they murder him for just touching his leg? As far as Westboro Baptist Church goes they can rot in hell.

The state of Wyoming needs to introduce legislation that will protect us gays from homophobic individuals. I feel this is an issue the LGBTQ organization needs to push hard for. Wyoming is among five US states that have no criminal hate crime law. In another 15 states, hate crime laws do not expressly cover a victim’s sexual orientation, according to the Human Rights Campaign. It also says LGBT Americans can be fired for their sexuality in 29 states.

We have plenty of work to do in order to get all of our rights in every state. So when everyone says that gays have rights just remember the statistics above. Gays still aren’t equal in this country.

While gay rights has taken a step forward in the United States, it is also taken a step backwards as well. The federal government has passed all of these protections for gays and lesbians, but unless some of these states enforce the federal hate crime statutes that are in place then nothing will ever be done.

Is is going to take a protest march in these states to get the rights we deserve? Yes I know Wyoming is supposed to be a rough and tough cowboy state. But everyone has a right to live their life as they see fit, even Matthew Shepherd.

I live in a homeless shelter and a lot of the men here want nothing to do with me because I am gay. That's fine as long as I know where they stand, but we should be way past the stage of homophobia. I had a man threaten to clean my clock if I came any where near him. I looked at him and said really? Aren't we past the stage of homophobia? He called me every name in the book. I was a little frightened for my life until the counselor told me to go sit down some where.

In conclusion, Matthew Shepherd was brutally murdered in Wyoming. Wyoming has no laws on the books to protect gays and lesbians in their state. We need to start protesting to protect our rights.