In the fall of 1998, a man named Matthew Shepard was savagely beaten, strung out on a fence like a scarecrow, and left to die as the Wyoming night temperatures plunged. Over the last two and a half decades, the killing has been called many things. But a BBC headline from 2018 perhaps captures best: It was "the murder that changed America."
A statement from President Joe Biden helps explain why. "Twenty-five years ago today, Matthew Shepard lost his life to a brutal act of hate and violence that shocked our nation and the world," he said this morning. "The week prior, Matthew had been viciously attacked in a horrific anti-gay hate crime and left to die – simply for being himself."
