Judy Shepard tells son's story

Judy Shepard tells son's story
By Gary Barlow
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
October 16, 2006


Eight years and four days after her son died following a vicious anti-gay beating in Wyoming, Judy Shepard brought her message to a crowd of hundreds at the Auditorium Theatre at Roosevelt University Oct. 16.

“I’m a mom, and a mom with a story and opinions, and that’s what you’re going to get tonight,” Shepard said.

Shepard told her story, and that of her son, following a vigil against hate sponsored by the Center on Halsted’s Anti-Violence Project.

“He had such hopes for the future, his future,” Shepard said of her late son, Matthew, who was just 21-years-old when two men beat him and left him to die on a rural fence near Laramie, Wyoming.

“He was my son, my firstborn and more,” Judy Shepard said. “He was my friend, my confidant. ÉI will never understand why anyone would want to treat Matt with such cruelty.”

Shepard and her husband were overseas in Saudi Arabia when they got the phone call telling them that their son was critically injured and near death. Flying back to be at his side, she said, was like an eternity—”an eternity of not even knowing if Matt was still alive.”

When they got to the hospital and saw Matthew in a coma, with tubes and bandages and massive injuries, she said, “I wasn’t even sure that this was Matt.”

“We so desperately wanted him to know we were there,” Shepard said.

But he never woke up, dying six days after the attack.

Shepard said she then faced the question of how to respond. She was sure of what her son would want.

“I knew Matt would be disappointed in me if I gave up,” Shepard said.

Rather than do that, she said, she began to speak out against hate and bigotry, telling people that’s the legacy her son would want to be remembered for.

“For all who ask what they can do for Matt and other victims of hate crimes, my answer is this—educate, educate, educate,” Shepard said.

She implored the audience to avoid contributing to what she called a “sic society—S-I-C—silent, indifferent and complacent.”

Every GLBT person, she said, should be registered and ready to vote in the upcoming election.

“Do you know how amazingly free you are?” she asked. “You have a voice.”

And after elections, she reminded the audience, voters’ rights and responsibilities don’t end.

“You need to follow up on the people you elect,” Shepard said. “They work for you. You don’t work for them.”

GLBTs should be vocal about who they are, she added.

“Talk—share your stories,” she said. “You have to tell your families and friends what your life is like.”

Shepard said no one should be afraid to be out.

“There’s not anything wrong with being gay,” Shepard said. “You love who you love and that’s just the way it is. ÉI never hear anyone say, ‘I wish I hadn’t come out.’ I hear, ‘I wish I’d come out sooner.’”

Shepard also said gays and lesbians should be able to marry.

“This separate-but-equal stuff just doesn’t cut it,” she said.

Shepard and her husband founded the Matthew Shepard Foundation to promote diversity in education and to work against hate. Last week the foundation also launched a get-out-the-vote effort.

“I do this now because I don’t want there to be another Matthew,” she said.

Following her talk, Roosevelt hosted a reception for Shepard.