For many members of the LGBT community, the relationship we have with our mothers may vary, but they are our Moms no matter what. With May being the month of Mother’s Day, it is a time for us to pay tribute to the women who gave us life and raised us.
Judy Shepard won’t get to spend Mother’s Day with her eldest son. On October 6th, 1998, her gay son Matthew was attacked by Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney and left tied to a fence to die in a remote area in Laramie, Wyoming. His passing from his injuries on October 12th and the subsequent trial of his assailants (both of whom are serving double-life sentances) brought gay rights and hate crimes to the forefront of the world’s focus.
Nearly a decade later, Judy Shepard continues to keep her son’s spirit alive through work with the Matthew Shepard foundation, whose goal is to replace hate with understanding, compassion and acceptance. On April 5th, 2007, eight years to the day of Henderson’s sentencing, Shepard spoke as part of the OutRights Human Rights conference.
Her 70-minute speaking engagement took its audience through a full range of emotions, from laughter as she shared anecdotes about her son, to heartbreak and tears when discussing his death. Shepard started by recounting the Impact Statement she read at the sentencing of Henderson.
"I want to thank the court for this opportunity to talk about Matt. I feel that I must try to share with you what Matt’s life and death have meant to us. It is important that it is revealed to you that Matt was a loving, vibrant, kind young man. You need to see him as we do to understand our loss. However I am not sure we really understand it yet ourselves.
"I love him and miss him more than I can express in this statement. We shared so much: late night talks, politics, beliefs, theatre, good food and good conversation. He was my son, my first born, and more. He was my friend, my confidant and my constant reminder of how good life can be and ultimately how hurtful. I can never understand why anyone would want to hurt Matt, to act with such cruelty, such complete disregard for another human being."
She continued, speaking of getting the call late at night, informing her that Matthew had been assaulted and hospitalized. She described the lengthy travel before finally being escorted to his hospital room. Even now, the pain as she described what they found radiated from her as she spoke.
"What we found was a motionless, unaware young man with his head swathed in bandages and tubes everywhere enabling his body to hold on to life. His face was swollen and covered with stitches. I wasn’t even sure that this was Matt. As we approached the bed I saw that this was, indeed, my precious son. I could tell by the cute little bump on the top of his left ear, and one of his eyes was partially open, I could see the clear blue color and who could mistake those long black lashes. But the twinkle of life wasn’t there anymore. And those braces. I could see through the tears those braces were unmistakably Matthews. We kissed his face, stroked his arms, held his hands and talked to him. We wanted so desperately to let him know we were there. There was some kind of response, he began to shake his arms and legs and we thought he was aware of our presence. But no, it was an involuntary response to our touchings. I thought ‘how could anyone feel so threatened by this tiny sweet child that they would do this to him?’"
After a 6 day vigil, the Shepard family said farewell.
"At 12:53am on Monday, October 12th, Matt was no longer with us. We joined hands, wept, prayed over him and for ourselves. There was a kind of relief that Matt was no longer suffering but also the realization that our suffering was just beginning. We were aware at this time that two men and their girlfriends had been arrested and were in custody. It gave us hope that those responsible for Matt’s death would receive due process and be punished."
While Matt was in the hospital many people concerned about him sent money to help defray medical costs. The Shepard family decided to use the money to make something positive come from something "so completely devoid of humanity."
"We started the Matthew Shepard foundation in our hope that it would be helpful in encouraging acceptance and embracing diversity. It is one way we can honor our son. Matt is no longer with us because two men learned that it was ok to hate. Somehow, somewhere they received the message that the lives of the others don’t deserve the respect and honor as the lives of us. They were given the impression that society condones or is at least indifference toward violence towards the others. We have become a S-I-C society – Silent, Indifferent and Complacent. For all who ask what they can do for Matt and other victims of hate, my answer is this. Educate, educate, educate. Bring understanding when you say hate and ignorance, bring light where you see darkness.
"For so long the community has been quiet and willing to accept what society is willing to allow us to have. Those days are long gone. It is time we used our beautiful voices, all of us, to express our opinions and tell our stories."
After reading her statement, Judy applauded Canada for legalizing same sex marriage. She spoke of living in the US and the foundation’s fight for change to hate crime legislation. She spoke of the difference between the administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush.
"In many, many ways, not just the gay community [has felt that] the last six years [of the Bush administration] have been just torture for us. Bill Clinton, even though he basically screwed us over with don’t ask, don’t tell, he kept us on the front page. He always spoke of us in a positive manner and that we deserved equal rights, that everything should be ours. He at least kept us in a positive view and we accomplished something. What we learned with both the Clinton and Bush administration [is that] you can’t accomplish everything from the top down, you have to meet in the middle and work grassroots campaigns and change minds. For some reason, Americans think that they work for their representatives for congress. That is not true, they work for us, we elect them to do what we ask them to do. They don’t do that because we don’t call them, tell them and express what our lives are like. We don’t tell our stories. No one knows who we are and that we are just as horny as they are."
This is where the majority of Judy Shepard’s message was. She encouraged everyone to speak out as themselves and tell their stories. Many straight members of society have misconceptions about gay people, and when they discover someone they are friends with and care about is gay, they discover that person is exactly the same as the rest of society - the only difference is who they love.
"Be just like them. If you don’t talk about it, you set yourself apart. You aren’t giving them credit or the opportunity to know all of you. You have to tell your stories, be who you are. Talk to your families and tell them who you are and what you go through every day or they will not know how to help you. Even when they know you are out and accept who you are, do you share anything else with them? Do you introduce them to your friends, or discuss the same kinds of things that your straight sibling does? The idea here is you are equal in every way. There is no reason to set you apart from anyone else in your community except who you love. At the end of the day does that really matter? No, it doesn’t."
