Two decades ago, a 21 year old college student was tied to a wooden fence poll, left to die overnight in freezing temperatures, just for being gay.
Matthew Shepard had been robbed by two men, pistol-whipped and tied to a fence in Laramie, Wyoming. He hung there bleeding all night until a passing bicyclist spotted him, thinking at first that he was a scarecrow. He later died at a hospital.
His death in 1998 led to national outrage and, almost overnight, turned him into a symbol of deadly violence against gay people.
Matthew Shepard
Mourners flocked to his funeral that year in Casper, Wyo., but there were also some protesters, carrying derogatory signs. Shepard’s parents worried that if they chose a final resting place for their son, it would be at risk of desecration.
Now they have found a safe place.
On Oct. 26, Matthew Shepard will be interred at the Washington National Cathedral, the neo-Gothic, Episcopalian house of worship that is a fixture of American politics and religion.
“I think it’s the perfect, appropriate place,” Dennis Shepard, Matthew’s father, said in an interview with The New York Times. “We are, as a family, happy and relieved that we now have a final home for Matthew, a place that he himself would love.”
“His death was a wound on our nation,” Mariann Edgar Budde, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, said. “We are doing our part to bring light out of that darkness and healing to those who have been so often hurt, and sometimes hurt in the name of the church.”
Shepard said his family had long searched for a fitting resting place for his son, who was once an altar boy in the Episcopal Church. They considered spreading his ashes over the mountains and plains of Wyoming, but still wanted a place they could visit to talk to him. They considered splitting the ashes.
At the cathedral, not only will the family be able to visit him, but so will guests from across the world.
The cathedral regularly hosts prayer services and memorials for politicians and presidents. It recently hosted Senator John McCain’s funeral.
The ceremony on Oct. 26 will begin with a public service in the morning, and the ashes will be interred privately.
Bishop Budde will preside over the event alongside the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, who became the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church in 2003. He has since retired.
