Found on Free Range Human,

" Nothing but class
The Christian Fundamentalists are on the warpath again. Christianity is a religion centered around a man who told us that if we love each other and love God, we will get into heaven. Period. How that translates into Matthew Shepard going to hell, I'm not entirely sure."

Historical note, taken from Wikipedia:
Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, 21-year-old Shepard met McKinney and Henderson in a bar. According to McKinney, Shepard asked them for a ride home. Subsequently, Shepard was robbed, severely beaten, tied to a fence and left to die. McKinney and Henderson also found out his address, intending to burglarize his home. Shepard was discovered by a bicyclist 18 hours later, still alive but unconscious.

Shepard suffered a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He also had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body's ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs. 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. He was pronounced dead at 12:53 a.m. on October 12 at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. Police arrested McKinney and Henderson shortly thereafter, finding the bloody gun as well as the victim's shoes and wallet in their truck. The two men had attempted to get their girlfriends to provide alibis.

After the attack, the prosecutor told reporters that Shepard's friends had been vocal about Shepard's sexuality: "They were calling the County Attorney's office, they were calling the media and indicating Matthew Shepard is gay and we don't want the fact that he is gay to go unnoticed."

During court cases both of the defendants used varying stories to defend their actions. They attempted to use the "gay panic defense", arguing that they were driven to temporary insanity by Shepard's alleged sexual advances toward them. At another point they stated that they had only wanted to rob Shepard and never intended to kill him.

The prosecutor in the case charged that McKinney and Henderson pretended to be gay in order to gain Matthew's trust to rob him.[8] During the trial, Chastity Pasley and Kristen Price (the pair's then-girlfriends) testified under oath that Henderson and McKinney both plotted beforehand to rob a gay man. McKinney and Henderson then went to the Fireside Lounge, a gay hangout, and selected Shepard as their target. After befriending him, they took him to a remote area of Laramie where they robbed him, beat him severely (media reports often contained the graphic account of the pistol whipping and his smashed skull) and tied him to a fence with his own shoe laces. Both girlfriends also testified that neither McKinney nor Henderson were on drugs at the time.

Several years after the guilty verdict, Price gave her third different account of the night (the first time she provided her boyfriend with an alibi until learning that Matthew had died and that she could be charged as an accessory to murder; the second time she said Matthew was selected because he was gay). She said the motive for the attack was solely related to drugs and money. She added, "I don't think it was a hate crime at all. I never did."

Henderson pleaded guilty on April 5, 1999 and agreed to testify against McKinney to avoid the death penalty; he received two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. The jury in McKinney's trial found him guilty of 2 counts of felony murder. As it began to deliberate on the death penalty, Shepard's parents brokered a deal, resulting in McKinney also receiving two consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole. Shepard's parents stated, "We are giving him life in the memory of one who no longer lives."

As Shepard lay in intensive care, candle-light vigils were held in support around the world. The public reaction and media attention focused on Shepard's sexuality.

The anti-gay Fred Phelps and his family picketed Shepard's funeral as well as the trial of his assailants. They displayed signs typical of their protests, with slogans such as "Matt Shepard rots in Hell", "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" and "God Hates Fags".

As a counterprotest during Henderson's trial, Romaine Patterson, a friend of Shepard's, organized a group of individuals who assembled in a circle around the Phelps group wearing white robes and gigantic wings that literally blocked the protesters (who were confined to a small protest square by police) from the view of passers-by.

After the incident, President Bill Clinton renewed attempts to extend federal hate crime legislation to include gay and lesbian individuals, women and people with disabilities. These efforts were rejected by the House of Representatives in 1999. In 2000, both houses of Congress passed such legislation, but it was stripped out in conference committee.