On 12th October 1998, Matthew Shepard, aged 21, was murdered.
No big thing, you might think. People die every day. What's so special about Matthew then? Let his father, Dennis, tell you:
"Matt's gift was people. He loved being with people, helping people, and making others feel good. The hope of a better world, free of harassment and discrimination because a person was different, kept him motivated. All his life, he felt the stabs of discrimination. Because of that, he was sensitive to other people's feelings. He was naive to the extent that, regardless of the wrongs people did to him, he still had faith that they would change and become "nice". Matt trusted people, perhaps too much. Violence was not a part of his life until his senior year in high school. He would walk into a fight and try to break it up. He was the perfect negotiator. He could get two people talking to each other again as no one else could.
"Matt loved people and he trusted them. He could never understand how one person could hurt another, physically or verbally. They would hurt him, and he would give them another chance. This quality of seeing only good gave him friends around the world. He didn't see size, race, intelligence, sex, religion, or the hundred other things that people use to make choices about people. All he saw was the person. All he wanted was to make another person his friend. All he wanted was to make another person feel good. All he wanted was to be accepted as an equal."
So why was this lovely young man murdered? Because of what he was. A homosexual.
Now whatever your views, just ask yourself this: does anyone, especially a kind-hearted sweet-natured boy like Matthew, deserve to die like this? (and remember, some of your friends or family may be gay, even if you aren't aware of it):
"Matthew was lured from a campus bar shortly after midnight on October 7 by two men (Aaron McKinney, 22 and Arthur Henderson, 21) who told him they were gay. He was driven to a remote area near the Sherman Hills neighborhood 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."
I found this information (which reduced me to tears, BTW - a rare occurrence) at 'Matthew's Place':
http:// www.matthewsplace.com/index.htm
But this is not all.
There is this preacher called Fred Phelps who, in my opinion, is a really shitty piece of work. He wants to erect a memorial to Matthew. If he gets away with it, this 'memorial' would be 5 to 6 feet tall and made of marble or granite. It would bear a bronze plaque bearing the image of Shepard and have an inscription reading "MATTHEW SHEPARD, Entered Hell October 12, 1998, in Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination*.' Leviticus 18:22."
Niiiice. ::assumes the expression of one who has just thrown back the bed covers and discovered that a rat has crawled in there and died::
[ *N.B. The Hebrew/Aramaic word translated as an "abomination" is 'toevah'. It refers to a breach of conventional religious ritual and is no more a mortal sin than is going shopping on a Sunday in twenty-first century Britain. So not that big a deal then. ]
I understand that this delightful Pastor Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church have also taken it upon themselves to picket funerals and gay-related events and such like - even other (more caring and humane) churches - holding placards bearing slogans that say things like 'God hates fags' - and they take their children along too. Can we say brainwashing? I think we can.
So, to Fred Phelps and his cronies, I say, "Fuck you! Matthew Shepard is worth a million of each and every of you and your abusive, pompous, self-centred, fanatical, bigoted, bitchy, sanctimonious, prurient, narrow-minded, mean-spirited, canting, self-deluded blockheads!"
Just my understated opinion, written in tears of sorrow and anger.
P.S. I am not a Christian, but if there were a 'second coming', then I think he (or she) would be very much like Matthew.
P.P.S. I used to think that Jesus preached a gospel of love, not of hatred. Was I so very wrong about that? 8-(
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