Shepard speaks against hate

The mother of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in 1998 in a hate crime, spoke to Pitt… The mother of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in 1998 in a hate crime, spoke to Pitt students on Wednesday at David Lawrence Hall about tolerance, acceptance and equal rights for gays and lesbians.

“Hate is alive and thriving in our country,” Judy Shepard said to the large crowd that came to hear her speak.

Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney murdered Shepard’s son Matthew in Laramie, Montana in 1998. She said he was murdered because he was gay.

Matthew was robbed, beaten and tied to a fence on Oct. 7, 1998. He was found alive 18 hours later and was taken to a local hospital. He died on Oct. 12.

The attack sparked a huge public response. Many pro- and anti-gay rights protesters demonstrated across the country, and President Clinton pushed for the addition of crimes against gays and lesbians to be punishable as hate crimes. This action was later defeated.

Shepard and her husband Dennis started the Matthew Shepard Foundation to stop hate and to promote diversity and acceptance.

The foundation sponsors educational outreach and advocacy programs for gay, lesbian and bisexual people. Shepard travels the country telling Matthew’s story and spreading her message of the dangers of hate and intolerance.

Shepard’s speech was preceded by a video showing images of hate and focused on the murders of Matthew as well as James Byrd Jr., who in 1998 was beaten and dragged behind a truck until he died.

Shepard began by showing the victim impact statement that she read during the trial of Matthew’s murderers. A victim impact statement is read in court during the sentencing of the perpetrator to describe the loss the victims have experienced.

“I love him and miss him more than I can describe in this statement,” she said.

Shepard described how hard it was to see her son in the hospital before he died. She couldn’t tell if it was her son at first because his face was swollen and stitched.

She said she did not blame her son’s killers as much as she blamed society for teaching them that what they did wasn’t wrong.

“They still don’t understand why they’re in prison. To them they just killed a fag,” she said. “We’ve become a sick society – silent, indifferent and complacent.”

Shepard said that our society teaches that discrimination against homosexuals is acceptable. She used a Snickers commercial aired during the Super Bowl as an example of this.

In it, two mechanics eat both ends of a single Snickers bar until they kiss in mimicry of the movie “Lady and the Tramp.” They panic and say they have to do something manly, so they rip out their chest hair.

Shepard said she was OK with the commercial but attacked the alternate ending showed only online, which depicted the two men hitting each other with wrenches and slamming the hood of the car on each other’s head. She said commercials like this say that violence is acceptable.

Shepard also talked about the harm caused by ignorance, such as the gay jokes that many see as harmless. She said these jokes only enforce the idea that it’s OK to discriminate.

“There is a good deal of friendly attitude, but there’s always that level of painful ignorance,” Pitt student Jessica Fields said in regards to the attitude toward gays at Pitt.

Shepard also encouraged gays to come out, saying that living a double life is destructive.

“You are who you are, and you love who you love, and that’s just the way it is,” she said.