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Michigan State University |
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The tragic death of Matthew Shepard has touched and shocked us all. On October 12, 1998, we held a candlelight vigil to honor and remember the life of this brave young man. Even though I never had the chance to meet Matthew Shepard, I am struck by the realization that this could have happened to any of my friends, just because of who they are. Hate crimes are happening all around us. There is a large rock on our campus that student organizations paint to convey their pride or advertise for an upcoming event. As tradition holds, our LBGT Alliance painted and guarded the rock for the National Coming Out Day celebrations, even though it was raining. Two days later, we discovered that someone had defaced our depictions of pride, and replaced them with hateful, bigotted, threatening messages. Despite both of these recent horrors, the students in our organization are
managing to stay strong. We refuse to allow evil, malicious individuals to
scare us into silence. Through this loss, we have realized that we must
continue Matthew's work, as his chance to complete it was cut tragically short. |
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