How will people who are in the LGBTQ+ ever feel safe, when they keep being discriminated? Matthew Shepard was an early-twenties college man, who was sweet, kind, outgoing, and caring. But he was also gay. This affected the way people looked at Matthew. Some with disgust, and some with open heartedness. But for a Matthew Shepard, it was his final day, he was looked upon with disgust. This lead to his murder.The Matthew Shepard Act is an American Act of Congress, passed on October 22, 2009, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009, as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2010. This was created as a driving force to stop Hate Crimes against the LGBT Community. The people in America were all over the place …show more content…
The men responsible for his death were Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson. 11 years ago, Matthew Shepard was just in his early twenties in college, when two men tragically ended his life, simply because he was gay. Our so we thought. It was stated by a man that maybe, just maybe, without the added drug combination, this poor man would still be alive today. Jimenez from The Guardian that stated in his book The Book Of Matt that “I believe to this day that McKinney and Henderson were trying to find Matthew’s house so they could steal his drugs. It was fairly well known in the Laramie community that McKinney wouldn’t be one that was striking out of a sense of homophobia. Some of the officers I worked with had caught him in a sexual act with another man, so it didn’t fit – none of that made any sense.” Many people were upset about with the fact that his murder was not called a hate crime, but I believe that Aaron was on meth, and Henderson was just an accomplice who in fact, was there with McKinney, but did not lay a finger on Shepard, nor did he try to stop the crime that was being committed. Therefore, in my opinion and in Jimenez’ opinion, the information that was given us about it being a ¨Hate Crime¨ is a hoax. True that it may have come from the mouth of Aaron McKinney himself that ”The night I did it, I had a hatred for homosexuals”, who is really right. Was it witnesses of Aaron in a sexual act with another man, or was it Aaron McKinney himself, who stated he killed Matthew simply because he was