Matthew Shepard was a young, openly gay man, who was attending the University of Wyoming in Casper, Wyoming. The following describes what happened to him:

Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, Shepard met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson for the first time at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming. It was decided that McKinney and Henderson would give Shepard a ride home. McKinney and Henderson subsequently drove the car to a remote, rural area and proceeded to rob, pistol-whip, and torture Shepard, tying him to a fence and leaving him to die.

Still tied to the fence, Shepard, who was still alive. but in a coma, was discovered 18 hours later by Aaron Kreifels, a cyclist who initially mistook Shepard for a scarecrow.

Shepard had suffered fractures to the back of his head and in front of his right ear. He experienced severe brainstem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature, and other vital functions. There were also about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face, and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate. Shepard never regained consciousness and remained on full life support. While he lay in intensive care, candlelight vigils were held by the people of Laramie.

Shepard was pronounced dead at 12:53 a.m. on October 12, 1998, at Poudre Valley Hospital, in Fort Collins, Colorado. He was 21 years old.

.I suppose Wyoming (and a number of other areas around the United States) would qualify as a "locality" that Akenaton speaks of where "the vast majority of ordinary people . . . see homosexuality as perversion."

I firmly believe that because of the hate-mongering and homophobia expressed by people such as Goofball and Akenaton, that they share in the responsibility for atrocities such as the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard and others like him. The so-called "scientific data" (not accepted, or actually refuted, by the vast majority of scientist in the field) that people like these two persist in spouting gives fuel to sick minds of sick people such as Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, Matthew Shepard's murderers.

Don Firth