Can anyone here ever forget the first time you heard about Matthew Shepard or Brandon Teena? I've been watching West Wing since it started on Bravo (please don't reveal any plot twists!!!). Lately, they have a storyline that clearly refers to Matthew Shepard - truly one of the sadder chapters in American history. I was messing around the Kerry website afterwards, when I stumbled on this statement:
October 14, 1998We come here this evening -- straight and gay -- Americans all -- to express our sense of shock and outrage for what happened on a dark road in Wyoming -- to express our passionate conviction and knowledge that there is no room in our country for the kind of vicious, terrible, pathetic, ignorant hate that took the life of Matthew Shepard.
We are a better country than that -- and I know that Wyoming is filled with good people who share our shock tonight.
But the question, here in this city of monuments, is what will we do about it as a country? Is there a lesson that can become a monument to Matthew Shepard and so many others who suffer because of other people's limitations?
The reason we are here is to guarantee that lesson. To make certain that there will be no period of indifference, as there was initially when the country ignored the burning of black churches or overlooked the spray-painted swastikas in synagogues; or suggested that the undiluted hatred which killed this young man is someone else's problem, some other community's responsibility.
We must all accept national responsibility for the killing in Wyoming, and commit -- each of us in our words, in our hearts, and in our actions -- to insure that the lesson of Matthew Shepard is not forgotten.
To my friends in the Congress, I say let us pass the Hate Crimes legislation. And, let the so-called leaders in this country stop their immature and nonsensical rhetoric which encourages, or justifies, these barbaric acts. Look to the 58 high schools in my own beautiful state of Massachusetts where 22 percent of gay students say they skip school because they feel unsafe there and fully 31 percent of gay students had been threatened or actually physically attacked for being gay.
Matthew Shepard is not the exception to the rule -- his tragic death is rather the extreme example of what happens on a daily basis in our schools, on our streets and in our communities. And that's why we have we have an obligation to pass laws that make clear our determination to root out this hatred. We hear a lot from Congress today how we are a country of laws, not men. Let them make good on those words and pass hate crime legislation.
To all Americans, I encourage you tonight to stare down those who want you to live in fear and declare boldly that you will not live in a country where private prejudice undermines public law.
Each of us has the power to make this happen, and in a small way change misperception and reverse prejudice. Our belief in the strength of human justice can overcome the hatred in our society -- by confronting it.
So we must confront it as Martin Luther King did when he preached in Birmingham and Memphis and all over this country, when he thundered his protest and assuaged those who feared his dreams.He taught us how to look hatred in the face and overcome it.
We should face it as Nelson Mandela did the day he left prison in South Africa, knowing that if his heart was filled only with hatred, he could never be free. Nelson Mandela destroyed systemic hatred, faced the fear -- and today sets an example to the world about moving away from ignorance.
We need to challenge it as Harvey Milk did in San Francisco, when he brushed aside hatred, suspicion, fear and death threats to serve his city. Even as he foretold his own assassination, Harvey prayed that "if a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." He knew that true citizenship belongs only to an enlightened people, unwavered by passion or prejudice -- and it exists in a country which recognizes no one particular aspect of humanity before another.
Today, the challenge is to face our fears and root out hatred wherever we find it -- whether on Laramie Road in Wyoming, or on the back roads of Jasper, Texas, or in the Shenandoah National Park.
The Declaration of Independence framed it all for us and everything we try to be is based on the promise of certain inalienable rights; life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Two young high school dropouts threaten each and every one of us when they stole Matthews rights and life itself.
That kind of hate is the real enemy of our civilization -- and we come here to call on all people of good conscience to pass the laws that help us protect every citizen and we ask every American to make the personal commitment to live our lives each day in a way that brings us together.
http://www.johnkerry.com/news/speeches/spc_1998_1014.html
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