Matthew Shepard's mother's memoir: recalling a brutal killing

The 1998 murder of 21-year-old Matthew Shepard because he was gay, shocked the world. The image of his body tied to a fence carried over into at least one TV show, Bones. But like other world headline making crimes such as the 1985 killing of Leon Klinghoffer who was thrown overboard in 1985 from the Achille Lauro, or the 2002 decapitation of reporter Daniel Pearl, with time it has receded from many people's memories.

Publication of Judy Shepard's (Matthew's mother) memoir, The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed (Hudson Street Press, 2009) casts the young man's murder in a light that I suspect may burn it and its significance deeper into readers' psyches. Put simply, Matthew, victim of a horrendous crime, was also someone's son. For sure there are parents with hearts so hardened from homophobia that they cannot sympathize. But I suspect and hope that they are a tiny percentage of the American population.

I believe that any parent who reads Judy Shepard's slow starting book will come away from the experience a bit changed. With no intention to compare homophobic killings to the immensity of the Holocaust, I suggest that just as Anne Frank's diary was the first book to put a single victim's face on the Holocaust, Shepard's puts one on the continuing epidemic of hate towards gays.
Although The Meaning of Matthew should probably be read with a supply of tissues on hand, it is much more than a tearjerker. We learn that long before Matthew outed himself to his mother - a difficult step for him - he asked her not to tell his father -she suspected he was gay and worried that he would never have a family of his own. In addition, Matthew was not street smart and at the age of 18 or so, he was raped one night while abroad with some classmates, by a group of three men. The incident left him with post traumatic syndrome which appears to have left a permanent mark on him.

Matthew' s difficulties with his identity also extended beyond the difficulty he had revealing his secrets to his father. He told two of his grandparents who seemed fine with the revelation, until his grandmother was asked if she would be willing to meet Matthews gay friends; she flunked the test by refusing.
Judy Shepard first learned about the circumstances of her son's death when, returning to the US from Saudi Arabia where her husband had been working, she saw a New York Times headline in airport kiosk. Summoned home for an unspecified emergency concerning Matthew, it was only in the hospital that the Shepards learn how serious things were. There they found him unconscious, his face and skull having been smashed in.

One of the unexpected consequences of what quickly become an event of worldwide significance, was a sympathy call from President Clinton. Initially Matthew's father refused to take it, fearing Clinton was trying to gain some political capital by calling. This was the first sign of things to come.
After Matthew's death, the family had to deal with the memorial service they arranged for him becoming a media event; CNN wanted to film the entire service. Even worse, a fanatical Christian group calling itself the Westboro Baptist Church, which travels the country protesting Gay pride events, picketed outside the church and later outside the courthouse when Matthew's killers were tried. "God hates fags," read one of their picket signs. With all the media storm created by the murder and the memorial service, the police even had Matthew's father wear a bulletproof vest he made a statement to the press.

In the aftermath of Matthew's death, Judy Shepard established a Matthew Shepard foundation devoted to fostering respect for other people, especially non-heterosexuals. Sheppard mentions that repeatedly Republicans have blocked adoption of a hate crime bill. She also briefly blasts the Catholic Church because Roman Catholic priests and the Newman Center tried to influence the jury and the outcome of the trial by persecuting the prosecutor of Matthew's killers.
Don't worry about the few moments in which you will need the tissues. In the end, The Meaning of Matthew is a reaffirmation of a mother's life and her love.