{"id":23266,"date":"2019-03-15T18:50:16","date_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23266"},"modified":"2019-03-15T18:50:26","modified_gmt":"2019-03-15T22:50:26","slug":"matthew-shepards-parents-encourage-love-after-students-tackle-laramie-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/matthew-shepards-parents-encourage-love-after-students-tackle-laramie-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Shepard\u2019s parents encourage love after students tackle Laramie Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not enough to be \u201ctolerant.\u201d Rather, we should\ncelebrate the differences and diversity in our everyday life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was the message delivered to students, parents and\nthe community at large last month by Judy and Dennis Shepard, the parents of\nMatthew Shepard, following The Country Day School\u2019s production of The Laramie\nProject, which follows the aftermath of Matt\u2019s murder, a gay hate crime, in small-town\nAmerica.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judy and Denis made the journey from their Wyoming home\nto speak to members of the community after each performance of the play, which\nwrapped up March 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither have seen the compelling and award-winning play\nall the way through more than once. It is a subject, of course, that is still\nraw, but they also know their presence in the audience might add extra pressure\non the actors bringing this story to life on stage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Shepards put everyone at ease at\nquestion-and-answer sessions after each performance, bringing with them a\nmessage of tolerance, but, most importantly, love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tolerance, said Judy, can sometimes have a negative\nconnotation, \u201cover there, but not next to me.\u201d Instead, focus should be placed\non love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think we have come a long way in society,\u201d said Judy\nwhen asked what changes she has experienced towards acceptance of the LGBTQ+\ncommunity since Matthew\u2019s death just over 20 years ago. \u201cSociety, I think, has\ncome a really long way. In the US, we\u2019re experiencing a turnaround. The current\nadministration just doesn\u2019t happen to like gay people very much, so we\u2019re\nstruggling there, but I think society at large [is improving] particularly\nbecause so many people now feel comfortable at work and in their homes, being\nout and who they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s what changed the fabric of acceptance as\na whole. People of influence are coming out. I think as a whole the community\nis changing and we\u2019ve just come really far, just not quite far enough yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prompted by questions from the audience, the Shepards\noutlined a number of challenges they see facing society today.
\nThe recent controversy over actor Jessie Smollett, who claimed he was the\nvictim of an anti-gay hate crime in Chicago before police alleged his claim was\nactually a hoax, was just one example. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a big, muddy mess, but the idea that anyone would\ncreate a crime like that and cause that much attention hurts real victims of\nhate crimes because now [people might look at] what happen to him and think,\n\u2018Nobody\u2019s going to believe me now\u2019 or \u2018I am just not even going to report it.\u2019\nIt really does hurt and it hurts the credibility of all the work we\u2019re trying\nto do around the many, many hate crimes that do happen. It was a really selfish\nthing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Matthew\u2019s murder, the Shepards have dedicated\nthemselves to stamping out hate crimes and fostering a world of acceptance\nthrough The Matthew Shepard Foundation. When asked what challenges they have\nfaced in the process, the Shepards cited religion, specifically those who\n\u201crefuse to let go of the mythology of what they have been taught,\u201d as well as\n\u201cwilful ignorance\u201d as some of the primary stumbling blocks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen anti-LGBT issues are being preached from the\npulpit, it is really, really damaging the heart and soul of the individual, but\nalso the community at large, because it reinforces the mythology,\u201d said Judy.\nThe thing to overcome that is now, 20 years later, religion is also falling\nbehind. Some religions now are more accepting and even encouraging to the gay\ncommunity, but I never understood how anybody could think that religion and\nbeing gay is mutually exclusive. You don\u2019t have to give up one to be the other,\nthat\u2019s just nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Parents, they said, also don\u2019t have to give up the dreams\nthey might have had for their children should they come out to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked what advice they would give to parents who are\ngrappling with their child\u2019s coming out process, they said that parents might\nhave specific dreams about a \u201cwell travelled road\u201d, one that includes\nmilestones like proms, graduations, weddings, and grandchildren. All those\nthings are still true, they said, but they are just a little different. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have no patience for parents who are not accepting,\u201d\nsaid Judy, noting that each coming out process is different for the individual\nand their parents. \u201cSometimes you come to a fork in the road and you think, \u2018I\nhave no idea what to do now,\u2019 and you have to trust your kids to be the\nteacher. That was our experience. Struggling is okay, but saying \u2018no\u2019 is not\nokay. They are your kids, your responsibility and you loved them five seconds\nago \u2013 why don\u2019t you still love them? Nothing about them has changed. Parents\nwho are still struggling need to make an effort.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Added Dennis: \u201cShow support, encourage and love. That\u2019s\nkey. We didn\u2019t care Matt was gay; he was just our son. A lot of times we\u2019ll\nclose [these talkbacks] by saying, \u2018Matt was not our son; he was our son who\nhappened to be gay.\u2019 That\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s not enough to be \u201ctolerant.\u201d Rather, we should celebrate the differences and diversity in our everyday life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/2019-03-14-07.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-63g","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 11:34:21","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}