Love and Understanding

The following article is written by a pretty good reporter from the USA Today and I think its a nice counterpoint to Rep. Kerns position in Oklahoma ....Mr Wilson writes every week for the paper and I have been a fan of his for years ....He wrote this article and it appeared in the Tuesday March 11,2008 edition of the USATODAY

Mission of Matthew Shepard's mother: Stop hate crime
By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Judy Shepard is having her photo taken in Lafayette Park across from the White House.
A winter wind is blowing down Pennsylvania Avenue, but she does what the photographer asks. She takes off her down vest and sits on a bench, smiling the best she can under the circumstances.
Shepard has been doing the best she can under the circumstances for almost a decade now.
It was in 1998 that Matthew, her 21-year-old son, who was gay, was beaten, tied to a fence and left to die, which he did three days later. It was a hate crime that made headlines around the world.

Shepard's life changed forever. She went from Wyoming housewife and mother to international activist who, with her husband, Dennis, established the Matthew Shepard Foundation. Its mission: to combat hate and bigotry through funding diversity and youth programs.
In the past decade she has traveled tens of thousands of miles, slept in more hotel beds than she cares to remember and has given thousands of speeches to more than a million people. Along the way she has met the rich and famous, as diverse as Hillary Clinton and Elton John.
"Elton has become a friend," Shepard says. "I lost my son, and now I have these other friends. It seems wrong on some level. It's very disconcerting."
Quiet devotion
Shy, retiring, quiet, Judy Shepard is a reluctant crusader. It has become her trademark in a way.
"This sweet, gentle, quiet woman who never wanted anything but anonymity suddenly became the public personification of the desperate desire we all have to end hatred and violence," says Judith Light, the activist and actress who sits on the board of the Matthew Shepard Foundation (MatthewShepard.org). "She doesn't pay attention to what she wants to do; she simply devotes herself to doing what needs to be done."
At times, Shepard says she doesn't quite believe what happened and what her life has become. Matt would be "confounded" by her life and what she has done this past decade. "But he'd be satisfied that the movement is going forward," she says. "He'd be happy that things are progressing."
Not as quickly as Shepard would like, however. Her biggest disappointment is that the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which includes crimes based on sexual orientation, has yet to be enacted into federal law. It would give federal authorities greater leeway to participate in hate-crime investigations and step in if local authorities don't act.
Although passed by the Senate and attached to a defense spending bill, the act was removed because it didn't have enough votes to pass in the House.
Opponents of the hate-crimes proposal says it's not needed because state and federal laws already outlaw violence against individuals.
Joe Glover of the Family Policy Network, a conservative lobbying group, told The New York Times it was "a shameless attempt to push the homosexual agenda on the American people by exploiting American soldiers who are currently in harm's way around the world."
Shepard has heard such talk before and isn't giving up, hoping her voice might still make a difference.
"I thought that if people could see I was doing OK, they'd be OK," Shepard says. "What I used to see in peoples' faces was fear. They were sad for me. Afraid. But now I see determination. I see anger."
She says no two of her speeches are alike. "I never work from notes. I want to talk to the people."
She tells them how her son and other young men and women who are gay face violence just for being who they are.
Shepard also points out what has and what hasn't changed in the 10 years since her son was murdered.
What hasn't is that hate crimes continue. She mentions the recent murder of Lawrence King, a gay 15-year-old junior high student in Oxnard, Calif., who was shot to death by a fellow student.
"This terrible incident underscores the fact that we cannot let hate go unchecked in our schools and communities," Shepard says. "Our young people need our direction and guidance to prevent this type of crime from happening."
What has changed, she says, is that when she was growing up in Wyoming, "no one talked about it" — "it" being homosexuality.
A place she won't go
At 55, Shepard says the past 10 years have been exhausting. Only recently has she begun to dream about Matt, which she looks upon as a good sign.
But she has never gone to the site where he was tied to the fence and left to die.
"That site has nothing to do with Matt," she says. "Matt's not there. And I didn't want that vision in my memory."
She escapes to the family home in Wyoming every summer to rest. (Husband Dennis works in the oil business in the Middle East.)
Shepard says she is the "cash cow" for the foundation, but she hasn't been making enough money of late to cover the foundation's expanding role.
The foundation, whose annual fundraiser is March 29 in Denver, where it is based, has an annual budget of $750,000. It employs five, who Shepard calls "family." Her remaining son, Logan, recently joined the staff.
"We try to educate everyone about everyone," she says. "But hate is still out there."
The foundation has educational, outreach and advocacy programs "to replace hate … with acceptance," Shepard says.
(GLAAD, the gay anti-defamation group, will honor Shepard with its Excellence in Media award Monday in New York. Past recipients include Billy Crystal, Diane Sawyer, Glenn Close, Patti LaBelle and Phil Donahue.)
Shepherd is encouraged by The Laramie Project, the play about Matt's murder that has seen 5,000 productions around the world.
"Ten years ago, can you imagine a high school putting that on?" she asks. "But it's been everywhere."
Keep speaking out
As for the 10th anniversary of her son's death on Oct. 12, Shepard isn't sure what will happen. Elton John has said he wants to give a concert, but no details have been finalized.
Meanwhile, singer Cyndi Lauper, who sits on the foundation board, has been giving out its elastic Erase Hate wristbands at her concerts.
Erase Hate pendants have been designed by jewelry artist Udi Behr; the foundation is marketing and selling the necklace for $60.
For her part, Shepard plans to keep speaking out in Matt's name.
"This all seems such a no-brainer to me. It's a civil rights issue. It has nothing to do with anything else."