LGBT rights activists bring anti-bullying message to Weatherly

Judy Shepard turned her anger into action.

In October 1998, her son, Matthew Shepard, a gay 21-year-old college student at the University of Wyoming, was brutally beaten, tied to a fence post, and left for dead in the cold of a fall evening in Laramie, Wyoming. His death shocked the world and became a catalyst for change in civil rights for the LGBT community.

It didn’t take long for his parents to focus their grief and anger. Just two months later, Judy Shepard established the Matthew Shepard Foundation and began her advocacy for the LGBT community.

Her work culminated in the passage and signing into law of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act in October 2009, 11 years after Matthew’s death. The law is an expansion of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 and includes crimes against individuals based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability.

The Shepards, Judy and her husband, Dennis, brought their son’s story to a crowd of 80 people in the Weatherly Area Middle School auditorium Wednesday evening, each taking turns speaking to those gathered.

The presentation began with a short video about Matthew, his death, and the establishment of their foundation.

School board member Chad Obert then introduced the Shepards, who took turns addressing the crowd, telling them about their son and the need to fight for equality.

“Matthew never saw differences in people. He just saw people,” Dennis Shepard said. He and his wife continually encouraged the crowd to do the same.

Judy Shepard spoke of Matthew’s struggle to tell his parents that he was gay. It was something that she already knew, she said.

“What took you so long?” she asked her son when he called her to finally break his silence.

Judy Shepard encouraged parents and all adults to be aware and to listen to children.

“If an 8-year-old girl tells you that she’s not a girl, she’s a boy, you must believe her,” Shepard told the crowd.

The couple’s goal was not only to tell those gathered about their son, but to encourage them to fight for equality for LGBT individuals.

“In Pennsylvania, you can still be fired for being gay,” Shepard said, something she and her husband repeated throughout their alternating speeches.

Following the presentation, the Shepards opened the floor to questions from the audience.

As for remedies to bullying, Judy Shepard has no use for so-called “zero-tolerance” policies.

“If you just suspend someone for bullying, all you did was give him a day off and a chance to play PlayStation. When they come back to school, what has changed? The bully is a bully for a reason.”

Despite her victories over the past 20 years, the anger is still there for Judy Shepard. When asked by forum attendee Sylvia Goughenour of Conyngham if she has forgiven the two men who killed her son, Shepard replied, “Forgiveness is not part of my process. They are buried as far as I’m concerned. They’re forgotten.”

The two men convicted of the murder are each serving two consecutive life sentences, a punishment Dennis Shepard initially struggled to accept. When he took to the podium to answer the same question, he said, “I want to fry them.”

Before speaking to the public crowd in the evening, the Shepards appeared at the school during the day to speak to students. Judy Shepard said she was impressed with the students and that they asked “great questions.”

Judy Shepard concluded the evening with a last admonition. “Be there for your young people. They are our future,” she encouraged the crowd. “Things will get better when my generation dies off. We’re holding things back,” she said.

Following their speeches, the Shepards mingled with the crowd to answer any further questions guests may have had and to encourage them to take the message out into their worlds.

“We are relying on you to carry this message out of this room and take it to your neighbors, co-workers and families,” she told a handful of attendees surrounding her.

The event was sponsored by the Weatherly High School Alumni Association.