Prominent gay rights activist outlines importance of acceptance

The Dorothy Young Concert Hall was crowded Wednesday night for a lecture by Judy Shepard. It has been over 10 years since her son Matthew was murdered, and that is almost how long Shepard has been fighting hate by sharing his story. Shortly after midnight on Oct. 7, 1998, two men led the 21-year-old University of Wyoming student to a remote area, where they demonstrated remarkable acts of hate from which he would never recover.

Steven Goldstein from Garden State Equality welcomed the crowd and spoke briefly on the fight for marriage equality, one of the issues the organization has made great progress on in New Jersey.

Early in her talk, Shepard shared her victim impact statement with the crowd of students and community members gathered in both levels of the concert hall. In the event of such a crime, the court asks the victim's family for a statement to explain what has happened to them - a nearly impossible task, she said. Shepard described her son as a "loving, vibrant, kind young man." "I love him and miss him more than I can express in this statement," she read in closing.

Since her son's death, Shepard and her husband have formed a campaign to end hate, including establishing the Matthew Shepard Foundation. She has spoken at many college campuses, several high schools, and also corporations. She stressed the importance of members of the LGBT community and also friends and family members sharing their stories with others, so as to foster understanding.

Shepard engaged the crowd by sharing entertaining anecdotes, which kept the tone of the event hopeful. The underlying message was serious: the cycle of hate needs to be broken. "Hate is taught, passed down from generation to generation," Shepard explained. "Really, all we need to do to break the cycle is to make a conscious decision to break the cycle."