"He's moving away": Matthew Shepard's parents prepare to lay their son to rest at National Cathedral

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David Fahrenthold Retweeted:

I spoke with Matthew Shepard’s parents yesterday as they prepared to lay their son to rest at Washington National Cathedral, 20 years after his death became a symbol for the gay rights movement

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Acts of Faith

‘He’s moving away’: Matthew Shepard’s parents prepare to lay their son to rest at Washington National Cathedral

Some of the belongings of Matthew Shepard, whose 1998 murder became a symbol of the gay rights movement, will be donated to the Smithsonian.

By Samantha Schmidt October 25 at 1:59 PM

It wasn’t until Judy and Dennis Shepard were sitting on the plane, leaving their home state of Wyoming for the nation’s capital, carrying their son’s ashes, that the feeling sank in. ... “Matt’s moving away now,” Judy Shepard, 66, recalled thinking as the flight took off earlier this week.

Twenty years after their son, Matthew Shepard, was brutally pistol-whipped and left to die on a buck-rail fence in a cold Wyoming prairie, making him a lasting symbol of the gay rights movement, his parents were on their way to lay his remains to rest — in a crypt in Washington National Cathedral.

The thought of interring Matthew Shepard in the cathedral never dawned on his parents, they said in an interview Wednesday in the massive, Gothic-style Episcopal church. They had only been in the cathedral once. They didn’t even know it was home to anyone’s remains, let alone the likes of President Woodrow Wilson, Helen Keller and Navy Adm. George Dewey.

But earlier this year, when the parents were presented with the idea of interring their son there, they felt it was the perfect fit. Matthew Shepard had served as an acolyte in his local Episcopal church, a place where he “always felt really safe,” said Judy Shepard, who also taught Sunday school in the church. Growing up, her son loved the theatrical, “pomp and circumstance” aspect of church, and the sense of belonging it created.

{Matthew Shepard will be interred at Washington National Cathedral}
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Matthew Shepard is photographed in 1993 in Rome, Italy. (Joe Hursey/Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution)
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Samantha Schmidt is a reporter covering gender and family issues. Follow https://twitter.com/schmidtsam7

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. Hundreds in line for interment of Matthew Shepard at Washington National Cathedral

David Fahrenthold Retweeted:

Hundreds in line for interment of Matthew Shepard at @WNCathedral

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