Posted on 10/16/2018 6:27:26 PM PDT by NRx
Twenty years after the brutal murder of gay college student Matthew Shepard sparked national outrage, his ashes will be interred at Washington National Cathedral following a public service of remembrance.
The Service of Thanksgiving and Remembrance for Matthew Shepard on Oct. 26 will be led by Washington Bishop Marian Budde and retired New Hampshire Bishop Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church’s first openly gay bishop and an acquaintance of the Shepard family. Until now, Shepard’s parents had not settled on a final resting place for his remains out of concern the site would be vandalized. As they approached 20 years since their son’s death, Robinson helped the family make arrangements at Washington National Cathedral.
The tragedy of Shepard’s death is still a call to the nation to reject bigotry and “instead embrace each of our neighbors for who they are,” the Very Rev. Randy Hollerith, dean of the cathedral, said in a news release. “The Shepard family has shown extraordinary courage and grace in keeping his spirit and memory alive, and the cathedral is honored and humbled to serve as his final resting place.”
Shepard, 21, was a student at the University of Wyoming in Laramie when a passerby found him beaten and tied to a fence in October 1998. He died later at a hospital. The crime ignited an outcry against the prevalence of anti-gay violence.
His 1998 funeral was held at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Casper, Wyoming, the congregation where he had served as an acolyte. Shepard also had attended the Canterbury Club while at college.
“Matt loved the Episcopal Church and felt welcomed by his church in Wyoming,” his mother, Judy Shepard, said in a cathedral news release. “For the past 20 years, we have shared Matt’s story with the world. It’s reassuring to know he now will rest in a sacred spot where folks can come to reflect on creating a safer, kinder world.”
About 200 people are interred at Washington National Cathedral, including President Woodrow Wilson and Helen Keller. Shepard’s interment will be a private ceremony, but the service of remembrance will be open to the public and could draw a capacity crowd of 1,500 to 2,000 people, the cathedral’s chief communications officer, Kevin Eckstrom, told Episcopal News Service.
The site may become something of a pilgrimage stop within the LGBTQ community, Eckstrom said. And Budde, quoted in the New York Times, underscored that the Episcopal Church is striving to offer a message of welcome to all people.
“A lot has changed [since Shepard’s killing], but not everything has changed,” Budde told the Times. “It felt really important for us to say that we believe LGBTQ people are beloved children of God, not in spite of their identities but because of who they are – who God created them to be.”
“It felt really important for us to say that we believe LGBTQ people are beloved children of God, not in spite of their identities but because of who they are – who God created them to be.”
If God created them as gay, then why does he ban them from inheriting the kingdom of heaven?
Ichabod
Assuming the Glory was there in the first place.
such BS.....
The Episcopal Church is all gay, all the time.
Really - they have to try hard to promote homosexuality as much as they do.
Is this a joke ?
The final resting place for this unrepentant sodimite is hell followed by the lake of fire.
He is experiencing right now eternal torment by a just God for sins committed and not covered by refusal of God’s priceless gift.
Until now I never knew the part about Matthew being a drug dealer and his dealer partner was actually the murderer. Wow.
His family seems to be in total denial about the real reason Matthew was murdered. Of course the Rats will perpetuate the myth that his death was due to anti-gay hatred.
So are they going to literally dig him up every 20 years to remind people who had nothing to do with it that they need to be guilty for his death like Burr Oak Cemetery does with Emmett Till?
There you go, letting facts ruin a leftie narrative.
a gay dude killed another gay dude over a drug deal and that means straight folk are bigoted and so he should be buried in the National Cathedral?
Where do they hatch this logic? Is there some secret stupid machine in DC that people get to visit once a week?
Why not? Years ago they decided each bishop could run his own church - provided that the ruler of England approved.
My Catholic Church has its share of issues/problems, but some Protestant denominations haven’t the slightest link to Christianity anymore. They’ve ignored not only God’s punishment of Sodom & Gomorrah, but also the sanctity of marriage as expressed by Jesus Himself, the male priesthood as instituted by Jesus Himself, the concept of Hell as described by Jesus Himself...Islam has stronger links to the Bible (at least the Old Testament) than many Christian denominations.
I predict a stained glass window depicting it in the near future.
...All this creative energy has been based on an important central premise: that Shepard was targeted solely because of his sexual orientation. According to conventional wisdom, he met his killers by chance in a bar, told them he was gay and left with them when they appeared to respond to his advances. They started attacking him almost as soon as he climbed into their pickup...
...All three of them, Jimenez argues, were involved in Laramie’s crystal meth subculture, as users and dealers. McKinney and Shepard may also have had a casual sexual relationship.
“Shepard’s sexual preference … certainly wasn’t the motive in the homicide,” Jimenez quotes police investigator Ben Fritzen as saying. “What it came down to really is drugs and money.” A number of other sources close to the story and the protagonists confirmed much the same thing.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/14/matthew-shepard-murder-wyoming-book
Matthew Shepard, Jesus for the left.
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