Matthew Shepard to Receive Plaque at Washington National Cathedral

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Just over 20 years after his murder, Matthew Shepard was finally laid to rest. His remains were interred at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. on October 26th after years of concern from his family that any place they found for him would be vandalized.

Now, a GoFundMe has met its goal of $30,000 to install a “one-of-a-kind artistic memorial bronze adjacent to the Cathedral crypt,” where visitors can remember and honor Shepard. It will sit next to a plaque honoring Helen Keller, who is also buried in the private Cathedral.

The October service for Shepard was led by Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop, and attended by over 2000 people, including Shepard’s parents.

“The bigger picture here is what we human beings tend to do, which is to label someone different from ourselves as ‘other,’ which is code for ‘not really human,’” Robinson said at the ceremony. “And then you can do anything to them that you like.”

Shepard was brutally tortured and left to die in Laramie, Wyoming at the age of 21. His death helped shape hate crime laws to include discrimination against people for gender identity and sexual orientation in 2009.

Anything raised over the cost of the plaque will be donated to the Cathedral and to the Matthew Shepard Foundation.