The University of Wyoming created its diversity office only last year.Attorneys for Wyoming in 2014 argued in defense of the state's definition of marriage as only between a man and a woman, a case later rendered moot by higher court rulings.Attitudes against homosexuality persist in Wyoming, but LGTBQ acceptance has advanced, said Jason Marsden, executive director of the Denver-based Matthew Shepard Foundation. Extremists Sometimes Hide Behind The First Amendment

President Barack Obama signed a federal hate crime prevention act named after Shepard in 2009, a law that Shepard's mother, Judy Shepard, said has been helpful.Laramie did not pass an ordinance barring discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity until 2015.

The following are crime scene photos from the attack on Marti Hill. Henderson believes that the United States should revamp its federal hate crime laws to protect everyone, even nearly a decade after the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. There were no federal or state laws at the time equipped to deal with violence dealt solely because of a person’s sexuality or gender identity.

Matthew had just come from a meeting of his college LGBT association, where the group was planning awareness activities, according to the Twenty-one years after beating Shepard into a coma and leaving him hanging in near-freezing temperatures from a wooden fence for 18 hours, McKinney and Henderson both remain in prison. “The night I did it, I did have hatred for homosexuals,” McKinney told Pierotti, “That played a part. Sign up for our "Twenty years on, it's a heck of a lot closer to being a place where people can enjoy their lives more or less equally," said Marsden, who was a newspaper reporter and friend of Shepard's at the time of his killing.The convicted killers, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, are each serving two consecutive life sentences.Henderson, now 41, said the U.S. should have laws that protect everyone, no matter who they are.

Hate Crimes Are Designed To Strike Fear In The Broader Community Hate Crimes Prevention Act, according to a 2018 Associated Press interview.

"Once people find out I'm from Laramie, Wyoming, they still zero in on this hate crime," said Trudy McCraken, who spoke at the forum and was Laramie's mayor at the time of the slaying.Wyoming remains "deeply defensive" about the idea that Shepard was targeted because he was gay, Burlingame said.Known as the Equality State, Wyoming got its nickname for being the first to let women vote. "We're nowhere near done," said Sara Burlingame, executive director of the Cheyenne-based LGBTQ advocacy group Wyoming Equality. Teacher: Samuel Woodward Was Humorless And Angry I think he has a contribution to make to society," said Malcolm Lazin, executive director of the Philadelphia-based LGBT group Equality Forum and a former federal prosecutor.Marsden pointed out that only Wyoming's governor could commute Henderson's sentence, a prospect that he called "super unlikely." "I think about Matthew every single day of my life. Henderson reiterated that he was deeply sorry for Shepard’s murder. Finally, in 2009, the Senate passed the bill known as “The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr.

Then they left Shepard in the frigid darkness.The next day, a mountain biker found him. Henderson tied Shepard to the fence after McKinney told him to do it, he said. Digital Original The judge prohibited the "gay panic" defense.Because of overcrowding at Wyoming's maximum-security prison in Rawlins, Henderson and McKinney have served their time in multiple states.

All rights reserved. They have both taken starkly different paths since they were sentenced, however. "As tragic as it is, and as unfortunate as it is, and as hard as it is for Matthew's family, and for my family, for all of us, to go through, it opened up all of us to be better people and really think about who we are," Henderson said of Shepard's death in a prison interview Tuesday with The Associated Press.Still, he insisted, neither he nor McKinney was motivated by anti-gay hatred when they offered Shepard a ride home from a bar. ©2020 FOX News Network, LLC. On Oct. 7, 1998, Matthew Shepard was left to die on the eastern edge of his Wyoming college town.

This 1989 photo provided by the Matthew Shepard Foundation shows Matthew Shepard in San Francisco. Heather Heyer's Mother Recalls The Neo-Nazi Rally That Took Her Life This feature is not available right now.