In Memory - May We Never Forget

On October 7th, 1998, 21-year old Matthew Shepard was discovered tied to a fence outside of Laramie, Wyoming. He had been bound, severely beaten, pistol whipped and left to die. He never emerged from the coma he was in when he was found, and died five days later on October 12th. The reason for this violence? Matt was gay.

I was living in San Francisco when this happened, and it was devastating. It was made all the worse when the “Reverend” Fred Phelps and members of his hateful Kansas church picketed Matthew’s funeral in order to tell Matthew’s parents and friends that he got no more than he deserved. To this day, Phelps has a counter on his web site showing the number of days that Matthew has been burning in hell. The kind of hatred and fear that was behind both the murder and so much of the rhetoric coming from Fundamentalist Christianity is incomprehensible to me.

Since I was so close to Laramie, and we had all day free today until the evening, I felt I needed to make a pilgrimage and visit the fence where Matthew was found. However, I had no idea of how to find it. I spent a long time online last night trying to find directions to the site, but my search came up dry.

In my other life, I work for the Institute for Welcoming Resources (http://www.welcomingresources.org/), a program of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington D.C., which works towards the full inclusion of queer people in the life of the church. This morning I called my boss, Rebecca, for advice. She called and spoke with a woman at the Task Force who suggested that I call the head of the local police department. She said that he is a very enlightened man, and has spoken several times in Washington about the issue of hate crimes.

So I called and spoke with the Commander of the Laramie Police Department. I explained what I wanted to do and asked if he could give me directions. He was a very gracious man who, on the one hand, stressed that the site was on private property, but at the same time wanted to help me get there.

I thought that perhaps JenDeen might want to go with me. So after I’d spoken with the Commander, I called her. I hadn’t even finished asking before she answered, “Yes!” So I rented a car, and we drove the 50 miles to Laramie.

In hopes that this may help someone else in the future, here is the route we took:

I80, Exit 316 – Grand Avenue
Northwest on Grand Avenue
Right (northeast) on Sherman Hill Road
Left (north) on Arabian Drive
Right (east) on Quarter Horse Drive

A couple blocks ahead, Quarter Horse ends and turns into a dirt road, the entrance to which is blocked off. So we parked the car and began hiking. From here, all the Commander had said was that the fence is about a mile onto the prairie, short of the butte. I didn’t know if we’d find it, but I had seen pictures of it, so I was hopeful. We actually found it pretty easily. It was unmistakable.

Rocks have been placed marking the spot where Matthew was found.

It was so painful to be there. However, I think it is vitally important that we bear witness to horrible events like these. We cannot allow Matthew or what happened to him to be forgotten. And I pray that we do everything we can to prevent this from kind of thing from happening again, and that we speak out against the Fundamentalist Christian hatred that helps to create an environment where these things can happen.