Ashes of LGBTQ movement symbol Shepard laid to rest

WASHINGTON — After 20 years without a permanent resting place, the remains of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old college student whose brutal murder in 1998 has come to symbolize the plight of the LGBTQ community in America, were interred at the Washington National Cathedral on Friday.

More than 2,000 people gathered at the Episcopal cathedral, the second-largest cathedral in the country, to celebrate Shepard’s life, mourn his death and honor his memory.

The service offered a measure of closure for Shepard’s parents who, until now, hadn’t found a spot that seemed suitable or safe enough to rest their child’s remains. It also provided a moment of unity and collective grieving for those in the LGBTQ community, for whom Shepard’s death has for decades represented the pain and discrimination many had experienced themselves. And the setting inside the same sprawling cathedral in the nation’s capital where U.S. presidents are memorialized lent to the weight of the moment as hymns, speeches, choral music and prayers for love, tolerance and equality bounced off the towering columns and sweeping arches, echoing across the nave.

Shepard was an acolyte in his local Episcopalian church, and when Bishop V. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop consecrated in the Episcopal church suggested the National Cathedral as a fitting resting place for Matthew’s ashes, his family agreed.

“Mattlovedthechurch,” said Dennis Shepard, Matthew’s father. “Matt was blind, just like this beautiful house of worship. He did not see skin color. He did not see religion. He did not see sexual orientation. All he saw was a chance to have another friend. Just like this beautiful home we have here.

“It is so important we now have a home for Matt,” he said. “A home that others can visit. A home that is safe from haters.”

Shepard was found badly beaten and barely breathing, tied to a splitrail fence on a dirt road near Laramie, Wyoming. He’d spent 18 hours there in the near-freezing cold before a cyclist discovered him, at first mistaking him for a scarecrow. He died five days later. Police said his attackers targeted him because he was gay.

[AP PHOTO] Dennis and Judy Shepard hold hands as they walk behind Rev. V. Gene Robinson carrying their son’s ashes at the conclusion of a “Thanksgiving and Remembrance of Matthew Shepard” service Friday at Washington National Cathedral in Washington.