Matthew Shepard Laid To Rest

Matthew Shepard Laid To Rest At National Cathedral

On a chilly night in Wyoming 20 years ago this month, a young man named Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die. Shepard was gay, and his killing was widely seen as a crime of hate.

Friday, his ashes will be placed in a crypt at the Washington National Cathedral.

A public service at the cathedral was led by the Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, Episcopal bishop of Washington and the Right Rev. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay man elected a bishop in the Episcopal Church. It will be followed by a private interment service for the Shepard family .....

One of the most depressing things about being a Catholic has been to see how the church has affected people who are LGBT. I can only imagine how hard it must be to grow up gay, but it must be even worse to grow up Catholic and gay, with the church teaching you from the time you are born that there is something deeply wrong with you.

The gay Catholics I've come to know are almost painfully grateful for the crumbs the church tosses them (don't be overtly mean to gay people). But the church keeps on the books the teaching that LGBT people and their relationships are "intriniscally disordered" and Pope Francis has done nothing to fix this, despite his disingenuous 'who am I to judge' statement ... he *has* judged marriage equality, for instance, to be the work of the devil.

Thank God for the Episcopal church and the many other Christian denominations that have accepted LGBT people (Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Lutherans, UCC, etc.).