Remembering…..A Tribute to Matthew Shepard

It was ten years ago Today that an openly gay Wyoming college student by the name of Matthew Shepard was found tied to a fence, after being savagely beaten and left stranded. The beating was so brutal that a description of his injuries, even a decade later, is hard to imagine and difficult to listen to. Five days later, he was dead.

“His head trauma consisted of a massive blow to the right side of his head,” Rulon Stacey of Poudre Valley Hospital told reporters at the time. “It fractured his skull from behind his head in a horizontal fashion to in front of his right ear.”

The Laramie Police ruled it a hate crime.  An international outcry for tougher hate crime laws came shortly after.

In 2007, HR 1952, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act was introduced by Sen. Edward Kennedy.  The bill would expand the1969 US Federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability. The bill passed the senate, but was ultimately dropped due to opposition from conservative groups, such as the American Family Association and President George W. Bush.  John McCain was absent and did not vote on this bill!