Who was Matthew Shepard?

The Senate recently passed the Matthew Shepard Bill, which makes it a hate crime to target individuals based upon their sexual orientation.

Matthew Shepard was only 21 years old when he was brutally tortured, beaten, robbed and left to die while tied to a fence in a remote part of Colorado. The University of Wyoming student had gone to a bar on the evening of October 7, 1998 where he met Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinley. According to testimony from Henderson and McKinley's girlfriends, the two men went out that night with the intent on robbing a gay man.

Henderson and McKinley pretended to be gay and befriended Shepard in the bar, with the intent on robbing him later. When Shepard asked for a ride home, the men took him to a remote field and bashed his skull in with a pistol. They then robbed him and left him tied to a fence to die alone in the field.

A cyclist spotted the young student the next day. He was alive, but unconscious. The impact of the beating had severely damaged his brain stem making it difficult for his body to regulate his heart and lungs. After four days on life support, the young man died. He never regained consciousness.

Shepard's parents, Dennis and Judy, buried their child in Wyoming the next week. To add to their agony, Fred Phelps, a so-called minister of the Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, decided that the funeral of a 21 year old young man was a perfect time to implement a protest. Instead of protesting against the brutal and senseless death of the young college student, Phelps and his followers held signs that said things like "God hates fags." To add to the insult, Phelps attempted to get a large stone plaque made in Cheyenne displaying a picture of Shepard with the words "Matthew Shepard entered the gates of hell October 12, 1998," along with a quote from the old testament in the bible.

During Shepard's funeral, friends of Shepard's, eager to protect the young man's parents and institute some resemblance of respect for the dead, dressed as angels and formed a line blocking the protesters. Police had to create a human barrier between the two groups.