| Judy Shepard keynotes
'Healing the Hurt' week |
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| Following the presentation
by Judy Shepard (far left), some of the audience members held a candlelight
vigil in Saint Francis Chapel. |
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Judy Shepard,
mother, schoolteacher and activist, commanded the rapt attention
of the large Kulas Auditorium audience last night (Feb 23)
in the keynote event of the JCU community's week-long focus
on hate, "Healing the Hurt."
Her low-key, at times even humorous,
manner was in stark contrast to the horrific subject of her
presentation -- the death of her first born son, Matthew, victim
of a vicious anti-gay hate crime.
As her website, Matt's
Place, recounts,
Matthew was lured from a University of Wyoming campus bar shortly
after midnight on Oct 7, 1998, by two men (Aaron McKinney,
22 and Arthur Henderson, 21) who told him they were gay. He
was driven to a remote area, tied to a split-rail fence, tortured,
beaten and and left for dead
in near freezing temperatures. A cyclist who found him some
18 hours later at first mistook him for a scarecrow. He died
5 days later
"It was a relief that Matt was no longer suffering," Judy Shepard
said, reading from the victim's statement she gave at the
killers' sentencing. "But
we knew our suffering was only beginning."
However, she turned
her grief into activism, establishing the Matthew Shepard Foundation
and travelling the country to speak out for diversity and against
hate. "Hate is a learned behavior," she said. "We're not born
knowing how to feel that way." Asked if she has been able to
forgive Matt's killers, she replied, "I never blamed them.
I blame a society that is 'SIC' -- silent, indifferent and
complacent."
Shepard urged her audience to speak out against gay
bashing and "tell your own story -- of discrimination you or
someone you know may have suffered." Register to vote, she
stressed. "Educate
yourself on the issues, go to the polls and hold the people
you elect accountable."
She paused. "There are days when I
think I can't go on. But I know Matt would be very disappointed
in me if I gave up.
"He would be disappointed in all of us
if we give up." |
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| Presented by the Office of Student Activities and the student organization, Allies |
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