Justice only goes half way

Diane Carman,
Denver Post Staff Columnist.

Nov 4, 1999 - A guilty verdict is not enough.

When the jury came back Wednesday with the decision to convict Aaron McKinney of felony murder in the brutal beating death of Matthew Shepard, there was no closure, no justice.

In a case like this, the law of the land doesn't begin to address the problem. Matthew Shepard's mother knows this.

Before McKinney's trial even began, Judy Shepard decided to take on the real issue. She did what too many of us have failed to do. She placed the blame for her son's death squarely where it belongs: on all of us.

A soft-spoken, private person, Shepard knows what it's like to confront her own ignorance about homosexuality. She also saw how her son suffered throughout his life from the taunting and hostility that is so frequently directed at gays. But what transformed her pain into activism was the day she arrived at the hospital to find her son barely clinging to life, his body beaten and mutilated. The story that unfolded about the torture of Matthew that night, and the grotesque display of his broken body as if it were a trophy for all to see, moved her to take a stand.

Shepard has given dozens of interviews and has appeared in public service announcements designed to heighten the awareness of the damage done by those who so cavalierly ridicule homosexuals.

"I feel very conflicted'' about Matthew becoming the gay-bashing poster boy around the world, she said to the online magazine, Salon. Finally, she resigned herself to it. "The gay community didn't need it, but the straight community needed it - to see what gay people were going through.''

That is her mission.

She doesn't aim her message at the Aaron McKinneys and the Russell Hendersons of the world. Instead, she tries to reach those who empower them through their collective silence.

"There is a climate in this country that sort of makes it OK to be homophobic,'' she told Salon. "The jokes and the stereotypical portrayal seem to make it OK. And that's what scares parents, because nobody says, "Don't do that; that's not right.'''

Shepard's work even has activated the religious community, which for too long remained silent about the persecution of gays.

Several chapters of support groups for gay parishioners have formed in Catholic and Episcopal parishes across the country, and clergy members from all denominations have written to Shepard vowing their support.

"The mail they send me is like a hundred to one positive,'' she said.

Still, the brutality hasn't stopped. In the year since Matthew Shepard's death, 28 more gay-bashing murders have been reported, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. In fact, spokesman Jeffrey Montgomery said the cases in the last year represent "a marked and terrible increase in the severity, viciousness and brutality of the crimes.''

It's time for the straight community to come out of the closet and support their gay brothers, sisters, parents, children and colleagues.

Only then will the humiliation, the persecution and the murder come to an end.

[Previous]