Suggestion for anniversary of Matt Shepard's murder

I don't know if people are doing this already, but every year on October 5 (I think, not sure of the date it occured), people should wear rainbow colored ribbons to remember him and what his death symbolized. Just like there are pink ribbons for breast cancer, red white and blue ribbons for 9/11, maroon ribbons for AIDS, and here in Colorado, blue and silver ribbons for Columbine, there should be ribbons for gays who were hate crime victims.

The Whole World Was Watching : Living in the Light of Matthew Shepard, by Romaine Patterson, Patrick Hinds



Very moving account from someone who knew him. Poor kid, just a crushed soul and to die like that. The guys who did it are now trying to say he was into meth, which is so not ture. ABC, it was I think, that did an interview and the story was trying to say it wasn't about hate. Do they think we're stupid? The way he was killed. Drug people mostly just get shot and not tortured in that way.

As long as the ribbons don't end up replacing talk and action. That is a problem with these politically motivated ribbons. They say, "Here is my opinion. Don't bother talking to me about it."

Matt Shepard's death was both a blow to me and a watershed moment in my life as a gay man. The day he died I was totally despondant, trying to figure out how people can be so cruel to someone else for no better reason than they like boys instead of girls/girls instead of boys. Or because they worship in X religion. Or because their skin is different. That same day, after a tearful nature walk, I was so incensed that I became much more active in the gay community. For a while, I had a chip on my shoulder, and all but dared anyone to hate-crime me.

A few years later, I got to meet Judy Shepard. She was a kind, soft spoken, passionate woman. You could pass her on the street and never think "there goes a fighter for what is right and good in the world." After her talk, a lot of people came up and gave her a hug...she was in effect "their" mom.