Decade after Shepard, no federal hate crime law

updated 4:57 p.m. ET Oct. 10, 2008

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Matthew Shepard's mother still mourns lost opportunities to battle hate crimes and promote a greater tolerance of gays in the 10 years since her 21-year-old son was beaten, tied to a wooden fence and left for dead in a frigid Wyoming pasture.

Though Congress has not passed a federal hate crime law, Judy Shepard is buoyed by enhanced punishments for crimes based on sexual orientation in 31 states and the District of Columbia.

"Ten years have gone by and not that much has changed, and I think that's just really disappointing," said Shepard, who with her husband formed the Matthew Shepard Foundation to promote equality for the gay community.

"We passed up a golden opportunity to set things in motion and make a change and set an example and let it go," she said.

In a case that outraged gay activists and their advocates around the country, Matthew Shepard died Oct. 12, 1998, five days after he was kidnapped, robbed and pistol-whipped by two men he met in a bar. Both men are serving life in prison for the murder, which police said was partly motivated by the fact that Matthew was gay.

Matthew's death after he was left in the cold — bloodied with severe head injuries — for 18 hours has produced an outpouring of films, books and plays, but it hasn't seemed to budge the rate of anti-gay violence.

Crimes against gays
FBI statistics show hate crimes motivated by anti-gay bias have remained at a stable level since Matthew's death. Both in 1998 and in 2006, the latest year for which data is available, roughly 1,200 such crimes were reported — about 16 percent of all reported hate crimes.

Matthew's mom has other disappointments on her list: The lack of a federal hate crime law; state laws restricting marriage to heterosexual couples; discrimination against gays in the workplace; and the government's refusal to grant gay couples the benefits afforded straight couples.

"What's OK about that?" Shepard asked. "Nothing."

Generally, hate crime laws enhance penalties for bias-motivated crimes, increase funding for the investigation of such crimes or require better record-keeping. Wyoming is among five states — along with Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina — that don't have any type of hate crime law. Fourteen states have adopted hate crime laws that don't cover sexual orientation or gender identity, according to the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based group that promotes equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Proponents have pushed for federal action for the past 10 years, coming closest last year when measures to expand the definition of hate crimes to cover sexual orientation passed both houses of Congress. The proposals ultimately fell short, partly because of a veto threat by President Bush.

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