Newspapers / Lambda (Carolina Gay and … / March 1, 2007, edition 1 / Page 4
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speaking Against Hate by Thomas Cluderay On a cold October night in 1998, just east of er. Shepard said that she continues to speak to groups across Laramie, Wyo., two men tied Matthew Shepard to a the nation to raise enough awareness on the issue so that fence, beat him and left him to die. Shepard was a gay stu- no one has to experience losing a child to hate as she did. dent at the University of Wyoming, and many Ameri- “Hate is a learned behavior, Shepard said. Someone cans considered his murder to be motivated by hate, has taught you over the years how to hate, who to hate and why. Carrying on Shepard s legacy more than eight years lat- But we can take it back; we can change. What made us a great na- er, mother Judy Shepard talked to a packed audience at the Uni- tion was taking care of each other, so why did we stop doing that? versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Jan. 30, saying that the country needed to be more accepting of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. “I have legs to stand on be cause hate for the gay community took the life of my son,” Shepard said to more than 400 students, professors and com munity members who filled the seats and aisles lining the Great Hall. “If we think as a nation that hate is something we don’t have to deal with on a daily ba sis then we are just kidding ourselves. It’s a problem we need to address.” Event organizers such as UNC-CH’s LGBTQ Office and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender — Straight Alliance teamed with nearly Judy Shepard speaks to students in UNC-CHs Great 30 other University groups to pub- iicize the event and to help pay for Shepard’s speaker fee, which was do nated in part to the Matthew Shepard Foundation. The planning process began more than a year ago when organizers were awarded a Carolina Parents Coun cil grant which covered nearly two-thirds of the total cost, said Terri Phoenix, assistant director of the LGBTQ Office. “There is always a lot of planning that needs to hap pen to bring a speaker of such national stature to campus,” Phoenix said. “But I love Judy Shepard because she is an ally, a mother who lost her son to hate and someone who talks about the issue broadly enough that people understand how education and understanding can minimize discrimination.” Although she never intended to a professional speak- Addressing the LGBT commu nity, Shepard said that while society needed to “take a giant leap of faith forward” to unlearn decades of anti gay rhetoric, gays and lesbians also needed to increase their visibility. “There is an extreme level of igno rance in our society today,” Shepard said. “So what are we going to do about that? We have to tell our stories.” “The problems facing the gay and lesbian community today have been faced by other minorities through out history, they are not new issues, but they only openly apply today to gays and lesbians,” Shepard said. Matthew Shepard’s murder took place nearly a decade ago and more than 1,500 miles from Chapel Hill- But his mother’s presentation remind ed audience members that it has only been two years since a group of men assaulted a gay UNC-CH student on East Franklin Street- That assault mobilized student groups at UNC-CH to hold demonstrations aimed at raising awareness to hate crimes against the LGBT community. Organizers also peti tioned the General Assembly to amend the state’s hate crime law - the “Ethnic Intimidation Act” - to include sexual ori entation as a protected category, said Taylor Brown, a UNC- CH sophomore and co-chair of UNC-CH’s GLBT-SA- The law remains unchanged, however, protecting only victims who are attacked on the basis of “race, color, re ligion, nationality or country of origin.” Tougher sentences
Lambda (Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)
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March 1, 2007, edition 1
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