Hate Crimes & Hope for Change

NY Dispatch Day 97: I recently watched The Laramie Project and was reminded of another unspeakable murder that sparked a movement. Matthew Shepard, a 21 year old kid who could have been your best friend’s younger brother, was severely beaten, tortured, tied to a stake, and left for dead on October 6, 1998. His attackers were local boys. His murderer tried to use the “gay panic defense,” in which the defendant claims temporary insanity or self-defense as justification to attack—with lethal force—...