Niki Cheong

Remembering Matthew Shepard

Oct 12, 2008 People

Ten years ago, today, a young 21-year-old University student in Wyoming - a small town in rural United states - was lured from a bar, tied to a fence, beaten up and then left to die.

His name was Matthew Shepard, and he was gay.

The incident caused a national and international uproar and people started calling for lawmakers to introduce laws to deal with Hate Crimes.

About 7 years ago, while I was studying in Australia, I wrote an article about Matthew Shepard’s death. I posted it online somewhere, but I am unable to find it now. What I did find was this icon I created (this was the days before I was familiar with image editing software and relied on online button and icon creators).

Even back then, I was very specific about how I wanted the icon to look. My reason for creating the icon, to go with my article, wasn’t to promote gay rights - it was to embrace diversity. Hence, I remember being concious of avoiding using the colour pink (which is often associated with the gay rights struggle, perhaps becuase of the pink triangle from the days of Hitler), and conscious of not using the word “gay” in the icon.

Because for me, hate is hate - whatever its motivation is. Most of the time, when it comes to hate crimes, this stems from prejudice , presumtions and most dangerous of all, ignorance. There is of course, the question of psychology as well - how can you hate something or someone so much to want to cause hurt to another human being?

Matthew Shepard was hardly the first, nor was he the last, to be a victim of hate. People hurt other people around the world each day - from the common layman to people of standing.

So, today, on the 10th year after Matthew Shepard was killed, I hope that people will realise that while they are entitled to how they feel - and disliking and dissaproving of something or someone else - one shouldn’t judge others by their own set of values. Whether we are talking about sexuality, race, culture, to name a few, each person should be allowed to live his or her own life (within the laws, of course).

We can choose to disassociate ourselves, with this person, but no one has the right to hurt anyone else - physically, verbally or mentally.

This is a call for tolerance, and love. Celebrate diversity.

Note: To read more about Matthew Shepard, visit this Wikipedia page. Following his death, Matthew’s family set up the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and his mother Judy has been traveling around the country to speak about her experiences and the battle for hate crime laws. She writes on the Foundation’s website about how things have changed (or rather not) in one decade.

There was also a play by Moses Kaufman, later made into a movie, titled The Laramie Project. It is an interesting read/watch because it doesn’t deal so much with the actual incident but is a compilation of interviews done with the residents of Laramie, Wyoming, in the couple of years following Matthew’s brutal murder. Time magazine has an interesting repository on The Laramie Project. The Associate Press too writes about Wyoming, 10 years later.

9.29am Malaysian time (+8 GMT)

Tags: diversity, gay, hate crime, Judy Shepard, Laramie, Matthew Shepard, Moses Kaufman, The Laramie Project, Wyoming