matthew shepard

President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Act into law on Wednesday ending a decade of efforts by LGBT and human rights groups to get sexual orientation and gender identity included in federal hate crime laws.

Sen. Al Franken announced Tuesday that he has signed on to the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing hate crime laws which outlaw bias crimes based on actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin. The bill was introduced in April. Sen. [...]

Several hundred people gathered in Loring Park on Monday evening to hear Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student murdered in Wyoming ten years ago, speak on the anniversary of his death. Flanked by Angel Action, a group dressed as angels originally created to prevent religious zealots from protesting Matthew’s funeral, a crowd of 300 people, including Grey’s Anatomy star T.R. Knight, listened to Judy Shepard’s poignant words.

“What we are trying to do is make the world a safer place… Things are going to get better,” she said. “As my husband, Dennis, says, ‘It’s been 10 years of change, but no progress.’”

She called for the passage of hate crimes and employment nondiscrimination legislation, and for a society where everyone is treated equally.

Ten years ago, more than 1,100 people gathered in Minneapolis’ Loring Park for a candlelight vigil to mark the death of Matthew Shepard, who died Oct. 12, 1998, from injuries sustained from a brutal attack by two young men whose goal was to beat and rob a gay person.

Now people will gather again in Loring Park at 6:30 pm Monday evening for a candlelight vigil to observe the 10th anniversary of Shepard’s death, and to draw attention to the fact that in those 10 years, Congress has failed to pass the hate crime legislation that bears his name. Shepard’s mother chose Minneapolis as the site of the vigil.