Tuesday, May 9, 2017
Matthew Shepard
Matthew Shepard was a young man who grew up being gay in a state where the majority didn't accept it. In the end he was murdered and hung on a fence post to die. This was during the time period when many shows were accepting of gays and showed the acceptance. When his death happened many were surprised that homophobic people were still around even after Hollywood normalized it. Many community members attended his funeral which included people who accepted gays and people who opposed gays. Even Bill Clinton attended his funeral. Matthew's mother talked about how she felt like she had to send out 100's of invitations to his funeral and it seemed as though she was upset for how people used the death of her son for benefit.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Personally I believe that hate crimes such as this will never stop happening. What I find amazing in the aftermath of this event is that the public was shocked at what happened and genuinely cared. Only decades earlier most people would not have given this event a second thought.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Trevor that the time of the crime had a big impact on its overall publicity. That was one of the reasons why it was hard to say you were gay earlier, because no one really cared if a gay person was killed.
Delete