Matthew Shepard is the most-famous gay hate murder. He was born in Wyoming on December 1st in 1976 to then become a student at the University of Wyoming who died on October 12, 1998, in a Colorado hospital where he had died of a severe head injury. Matthew was beaten and tortured by two men who are now charged for first-degree murder and given two life-sentences. The two men had pistol-whipped him with a gun then tied him to a fence in the freezing cold, setting him on fire leaving him to die. The Matthew Shepard Foundation was made and ran by his parents Judy and Dennis Shepard who would then be advocates for gay rights, this would also fund educational programs and online programs for the ability to discuss sexual orientation and gender issues, they made it a safe space for those who were in the LGBT Community.
Matthew Shepard Act (2007)
The Matthew Shephard Act (2007) was legislated to punish hate crimes motivated by race, sexual orientation, religion, gender, and disability. It took a few years for the act to be enacted and approved until in 2009 when President Barack Obama signed Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act. This act helped to protect and ensure justice for the LGBTQ community through creating harsher laws against those who committed crimes and to have mandatory minimum sentencing. Because most people who were convicted of murdering people serve a short sentence. At the end of the twentieth century, several states and cities in America began to initiate hate crimes and anti-discrimination statutes, which included sexuality into their laws.