[Dante3]

It's not just his lifestyle. Matt Shepard was a pedophile, and his murder resulted from a drug deal gone wrong, the killer his alleged lover. An extensive amount of fake news was disseminated about this case for whatever reason.

No, he was not killed because he was gay - it was NOT a hate crime. There's nothing admirable about him. A shame that fake news about him is promoted.

[Verginius Rufus]

Apart from the real reason he was killed, I think the reason the media gave the story so much publicity (when probably at least 15,000 other Americans were murdered that year) was to fire up Democrats to vote in the midterm election.