I would like to thank those who helped me greatly in writing this article. Susan Curtis, Roger Finke, Elliott Gorn, Rich Hogan, and Frank Lambert each offered valued guidance and insight. Rebecca L. Wells was my muse. Beth Kubacka was my muledriver when I was bogged down. I thank my mom, Diane Hoffman, most especially. Without her labors, this labor would not be possible.

1. J. Hughes, “Wyo. cyclist recalls tragic discovery,” Denver Post, October 15, 1998, http://www.denverpost.com/news/shep1015.htm, accessed October 21, 1998.

2. This account of the night of Shepherd's murder is drawn primarily from Gina Thernstrom, “The Crucifixion of Matthew Shepard,” Vanity Fair, March 1999, 209–75, and Loffreda, Beth, Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000)Google Scholar.

3. Covering the period between October 1998 and June 2010 in this article, I primarily analyze materials from three major news media: newspapers, magazines, and national television broadcasts. Additionally, I include supplemental materials such as press releases, statements by prominent public figures, song lyrics, poetry, and so forth. John Aravosis's “Wired Strategies” and Yahoo's online archives of media coverage of the incident proved invaluable to me in writing this article. The seven newspapers I examined include the University of Wyoming's Branding Iron and nationally prominent papers, such as the New York Times, the Denver Post, and the Los Angeles Times. I chose these and Associated Press wire reports to gain an understanding of reportage both within Laramie and across the country. I examined the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the AP in particular because of their influence on national news coverage. Because I conducted much of this research as the Shepard story unfolded, it was difficult to review systematically all newspaper coverage using hard copies. I found many newspaper stories, as a result, by checking newspapers’ Web sites, “Wired Strategies,” and Yahoo. I then printed out the stories and analyzed for language content. Whenever possible, I included page number and column information in the notes. I compared mainstream press coverage (such as People, Time, Newsweek, and Vanity Fair) with coverage in the gay press, as represented by the Advocate. National daily television coverage was difficult to gather because of the proliferation and ephemeral nature of TV news. As a result, this analysis relies upon select television news programs that provided special coverage of the Shepard story, such as videotaped episodes of ABC's “Nightline” and NBC's “Dateline,” as well as transcripts and summaries of CNN newscasts gathered from “Wired Strategies.” While perhaps not a systematic survey of the news media, the breadth and volume of the sources I examined provide an overview of the national coverage of the Shepard case that is suitable for language content analysis. This article also analyzes materials from some twenty e-mail lists, bulletin boards, and Web sites to gain insight into the popular discussion of Shepard. Items from e-mail lists were either sent directly to or forwarded to me. I found bulletin boards via topic searches for “Matthew Shepard” on Google, which I then printed out and analyzed for language content. I examined the “Matthew Shepard Web Ring,” a collection of memorial Web sites, as well as such social media sites as Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube. Those sites containing discussion from a wide variety of people from across America I also printed out and reviewed for language content. Again, while not a complete survey of the Internet—which may be impossible—this article includes as much material as I could find. It should be added, however, that I considered only items posted by American citizens (as best as I could determine). Finally, I primarily analyze the language used to create the different constructions of Shepard, generally excluding visual images. However, because some of these images (including one in particular) are widely credited with an instrumental role in creating a construction, I have included them as evidence.

4. McBrien, Richard P., Lives of the Saints: From Mary and St. Francis of Assisi to John XXIII and Mother Teresa (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), 5 Google Scholar. Perhaps indicative of the expanding definition of martyr beyond the confines of institutional Christianity, McBrien also includes such figures as “the Hindu holy man of India, Mohandas Ghandi.”

5. Bowerstock, G. W., Martyrdom and Rome (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 5 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an exploration of the values that went into the martyr's decision to accept death voluntarily, see Stark, Rodney, The Rise of Christianity (San Francisco: Harper, 1997)Google Scholar. For a concise discussion of Stephen as the first martyr, see Street, Gail P. C., Redeemed Bodies: Women Martyrs in Early Christianity (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), 29 Google Scholar. Regarding the Holy Innocents, see Brown, Raymond Edward, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1977)Google Scholar. See also “Holy Innocents,” in McBrien, Lives of the Saints, 522–23. As a reminder of the martyrs’ example and of their own identity, early Christians commemorated each martyr on the day of her or his death. This annual celebration was known as the dies natalis, or the martyr's “birthday” into heaven. By the fifth century, for example, Christians across the Roman Empire celebrated separate feasts for both Stephen and the Holy Innocents.

6. This discussion is based upon Paul Halsall's online “Medieval Sourcebook,” http:www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/rinn.html, and Dundes, Alan, “The Ritual Murder or Blood Libel Legend: A Study of Anti-Semitic Victimization through Projective Inversion,” in The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore, ed. Dundes, Alan (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 360 Google Scholar. Chaucer based The Prioress's Tale on Hugh's legend.

7. Robert Orsi defines popular religion as faith and practices that are both rooted in and existing outside the “official” culture of religious institutions. It is “the totality of [people’s] ultimate values, their most deeply held ethical convictions, their efforts to order reality, their cosmology… . the reason that, consciously and unconsciously, structured and was expressed in their actions and reflections.” He adds that these deep meanings are often expressed in the rituals, symbols, prayers, and practices of popular celebrations, for example, street festivals on saints’ days. Robert Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880–1950 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), xvii.

8. This account of Seider's death is drawn from Young, Alfred F., The Shoemaker and the Tea Party: Memory and the American Revolution (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999)Google Scholar, and Zobel, Hiller B., The Boston Massacre (New York: W. W. Norton, 1970)Google Scholar. Significantly, the title of Zobel's chapter is “Seider the Martyr.” Numerous scholars have grappled with the distinction between the sacred and the secular. In the mid-twentieth century, such scholars as Harvey Cox and Peter Berger have assumed that Western culture was trending toward an elimination of a religious understanding of reality and that faith must either adapt or wither away. However, as Rodney Stark and Roger Finke argue in Acts of Faith: The Human Side of Religion (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), recent history and sociological studies suggest that this process of secularization is not as inevitable and secularism is not as all-pervasive as once thought. More recently, Ingolf U. Dalferth has published an examination of the term secularism itself that highlights the word's complexities and ambiguities in academic and popular use. He further argues that today's post-secular societies are neither for nor against religion but consider it irrelevant. Dalferth, Ingolf U., “Post-Secular Society: Christianity and the Dialectics of the Secular,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 78, no. 2 (June 2010): 3–25 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In light of this discussion, this article draws upon The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church's succinct and pertinent definition of “secularism” as a tendency “to ignore, if not to deny, the principles of supernatural religion in the interpretation of the world and existence” (3d ed., s.v. “secularism”). This definition stands as a counterpart to Orsi's understanding of popular religion as a means of interpretation.

9. In Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans, R. Laurence Moore demonstrates how the political and social status of some religious groups in America generally led to “deliberate differentiation,” a consciousness of separation and dissent from the dominant culture, as a way to contest their exclusion from the mainstream. Other marginalized groups have used this method—such as the abolitionists and John Brown—to claim legitimacy (see Laurence Moore, R., Religious Outsiders and the Making of Americans [New York: Oxford University Press, 1986]Google Scholar). For John Brown, see Finkelman, Paul, “Manufacturing Martyrdom: The Antislavery Response to John Brown's Raid,” in His Soul Goes Marching On: Responses to John Brown and the Harper's Ferry Raid, ed. Finkelman, Paul (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1995), 41–66 Google Scholar. The work of Brian K. Smith, although addressing debates in contemporary America about capital punishment, casts some light on this transformation of an execution into a popular martyrdom. In his “Capital Punishment and Human Sacrifice,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 69, no. 2 (March 2000): 3–25, Smith argues that such debates over capital punishment are exacerbated by conflicting understandings of execution as either a “sacrifice” to preserve order in society or simply “state-sanctioned murder.” I would suggest that, in certain cases, a third option is popular martyrdom. If a significant number of people come to believe that the executed person is an innocent representative of a marginalized or persecuted group, then, as Smith might argue, “the unanimity regarding the ‘guilt’ of the victim and the ‘justice’ of putting him to death … breaks down” (19). Smith continues: “Under such circumstances the ritual act of killing becomes no longer a socially ‘purifying’ act but itself the possibility for social dissension” (ibid.). Here, the sacrifice to preserve the social status quo becomes a sacrifice that overturns it. As in the case of John Brown, popular martyrdom opens an opportunity to usher in a reformed society. For Lincoln, see Sandage, Scott A., “A House Divided: The Lincoln Memorial, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Politics of Memory, 1939–1963,” Journal of American History 80, no. 2 (June 1993): 135–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Mattie Smith Collin, “Mother's Tears Greet Son Who Died a Martyr,” Chicago Defender, September 10, 1955, 1. For a concise account of the Emmett Till case, see Whitfield, Stephen J., A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till (New York: Free Press, 1988)Google Scholar. Other examples of Till as popular martyr can be found in the titles of Hudson-Weems, Clenora, Emmett Till: The Sacrificial Lamb of the Civil Rights Movement (Troy, Mich.: Bedford Publishers, 1994)Google Scholar, which includes a chapter on “The Spiritual Force of Till's Lynching,” and Christopher Metress, “On That Third Day He Rose: Sacramental Memory and the Lynching of Emmett Till,” in Emmett Till in Literary Memory and Imagination, ed. Harriet Pollack and Christopher Metress (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2008), 16–30. In this essay, Metress explores some of 140 or more literary and popular retellings of Till's story and concludes that these works often draw comparisons between the young man's brutal murder and Christ's sacrifice. This is a key feature of martyr-making since Luke's account of the death of Stephen. It would play a vital role in the popular canonization of Matthew Shepard. Donald G. Mathews offers some insight into how, within a uniquely southern, uniquely American context, a lynching can be cast as popular martyrdom. Mathews argues that, for whites at least, lynchings were acts of torture and murder inspired, in part, by the dogma that dominated Christianity in the South: that Christ died a violent death to atone for sin. Such acts of ritualized punishment for often imaginary crimes, therefore, were meant not only to maintain segregation but also to sustain white purity and holiness. African Americans, of course, saw the situation differently. According to Mathews, blacks saw that Christ “suffered with them and not for them … that He had not come to justify punishment but to break its power” (Mathews's emphasis). Donald G. Mathew, “The Southern Right of Human Sacrifice,” Journal of Southern Religion, http://jsr.fsu.edu/mathews.htm, accessed August 25, 2009. As Smith might observe, from this perspective, lynching as a ritualized act of killing is not socially purifying but instead an opportunity for social dissension and, I would add, popular martyrdom for some. Louis P. Masur provides some understanding of the role that news photographs can play in fostering such dissent. The Soiling of Old Glory: The Story of a Photograph That Shocked America (New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2008) examines Stanley Foreman's famous photograph of an antibussing riot in Boston on April 5, 1976, some twenty-one years after Till's death and some twenty-two years before Shepard’s. In it, a well-dressed black man appears to be pierced, like Christ, with an American flag wielded by a young white protester. The shocking image destroyed the illusion that racism was simply confined to the South. Reaction was immediate as politicians and the press denounced the act of violence and thousands marched in the street. Antibussing activists blamed the media for one-sided reporting, but, according to Masur, the photograph effectively ended the antibussing movement. Under the right conditions, then, a photo can dramatically impact the course of a social movement. A widely disseminated photo of Till in his casket certainly played a similar and important role in launching the civil rights movement and fostering his popular martyrdom. A photo of Shepard would also impact the gay rights movement.

11. Hoffman, Scott, “Holy Martin: The Overlooked Canonization of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,” Religion and American Culture: A Journal of Interpretation 10, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 123–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In what might be an example of continuing popular belief in the baptism of blood, later revelations of King's philandering and plagiarism have not effaced his martyrdom.

12. See Chauncy, George, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994)Google Scholar. For Henry Gerber's opinion of religion, see Bullough, Vern L, ed., Before Stonewall: Activists for Gay and Lesbian Rights in Historical Context (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2002), 29 Google Scholar. Patrick Allitt details the founding of the San Francisco Council on Religion and Homosexuality (CRH) in Religion in America since 1945: A History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). His chapter “Fears, Threats and Promises: 1990– 2000” offers a good overview of the history of homosexuality and religion in the decades following the Second World War. See also Before Stonewall, where Del Martin describes the involvement of Phyllis Lyon (her partner and co-founder of the Daughters of Bilitis) in the CRH (170–72). Lyon identified herself as a “nonbeliever,” yet she served as administrative assistant for the group.

13. For the Stonewall Uprising, see Clendinen, Dudley and Nagourney, Adam, Out for Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999), 21–32 Google Scholar, and Miller, Neil, Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present (New York: Vintage, 1995), 365–67Google Scholar. For gay and lesbian rights organizations following Stonewall, see Marcus, Eric, Making Gay History: The Half Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Rights (New York: HarperCollins, 2002)Google Scholar, especially “Part Four: Liberation,” 119–83, and Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, 33–85.

14. For the United Church of Christ and other liberal denominations, see Allitt, Religion in America since 1945, 234–36. For the MCC, see ibid., 234, and Bullough, Before Stonewall, 393–98. On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons is discussed in Allitt, Religion in America since 1945, 238. For discussions of Anita Bryant, see Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, 305–16, and Miller, Out of the Past, 402. For Jerry Falwell and the conservative antigay opposition, see Miller, Out of the Past, 409–10, and Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, 306, 328–29, 408, 421–22, 464–66. For the Reagan administration's antigay immigration policy, see Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, 532.

15. For discussion of Bowers v. Hardwick, see Marcus, Making Gay History, 352–53, Miller, Out of the Past, 455–57, and Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, 533–39. See also Randy Shilts, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987). A pioneering account of the AIDS crisis in America during the 1980s, Shilts's book is still considered a definitive history of the period. See also Schaller, Michael, Reckoning with Reagan: America and Its President in the 1980s (New York: Oxford Press, 1992), 93–95 Google Scholar. Both Shilts and Schaller, in particular, consider the role of Rock Hudson's death in the mainstream's growing sympathy, describing both positive and negative reactions to the AIDS crisis.

16. For discussions of ACT UP, see Miller, , Out of the Past, 457–60Google Scholar, and Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, 547–50, 557–58. For growing sympathy among bystanders for people with AIDS and its effects on the gay and lesbian rights movement, see Shilts, And the Band Played On, 575–79, Marcus, Making Gay History, 298–300, Miller, Out of the Past, 455–57, and Schaller, Reckoning with Reagan, 94.

17. For discussion of institutions and grassroots organizations favoring civil rights for sexual minorities during the 1990s, including Soulforce, and the conservatives’ response, such as the development of Exodus International and other groups, see Allitt, , Religion in America since 1945, 238–41Google Scholar. For the HRC, see Miller, , Out of the Past, 452–55Google Scholar, and Clendinen and Nagourney, Out for Good, 485–86.

18. While history suggests why Americans make popular martyrs, sociology offers insight into how. Particularly relevant to this study is social movement theory and its concept of framing. A frame is a filter or a template, rooted in previously held beliefs or shared patterns of perception and interpretation, that people use to process new information. It is a worldview, a way of looking at a situation. Social movements succeed in creating social change when they convey their frame, their particular point of view, to “bystanders” outside the movement. This process is “frame alignment,” getting bystanders to line up their own frames with that of the movement. “Resonance,” when a social movement presents a frame that reverberates with beliefs and myths already existing among bystanders, is an important factor in creating that alignment. See David A. Snow and others, “Frame Alignment Processes, Micromobilization, and Movement Participation,” American Sociological Review 51 (1986): 464–81, and David A. Snow and Robert D. Benford, “Ideology, Frame Resonance, and Participant Mobilization,” in From Structure to Action: Comparing Social Movement Research across Cultures, vol. 1 of International Social Movement Research, ed. Bert Klandermans and others (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI, 1988), 197–217. A sense of injustice among bystanders is an important factor in fostering resonance. If bystanders can come to feel that the members of a social movement are experiencing injustice, they will come to support the movement and perhaps be spurred into action. See William A. Gamson, Talking Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

However, injustice can be a component of other frames, such as the victim, that conceivably could be assigned to someone after death. As the case of John Brown illustrates, and as Smith might point out, a martyr in some circles might be a terrorist in others. Furthermore, religion may have little bearing on how advocates may present the deceased. A social movement may simply depict him or her as a political martyr, a frame essentially devoid of religious belief. It is possible, however, that bystanders may nevertheless draw upon religion to create a frame for that person. As a result, social movement theory alone cannot explain popular martyrdom. It does not adequately discuss whether or how the public may receive a frame and rework it.

Noting the pervasive influence of mass media in contemporary America, social construction theory attempts to understand the process by which people rework frames. The news media acquire or create such images and then disseminate them to their audiences. During an interview with a reporter, activists or professionals will promote a particular understanding of reality (or a “claim,” similar to social movement theory's “frame”), which the news media then relay to the public. See Joel Best, “‘Road Warriors’ on ‘Hair-Trigger Highways’: Cultural Resources and the Media's Construction of the 1987 Freeway Shootings Problem,” Sociological Inquiry 61 (1991): 327–45. In this understanding, the audience may seem passively receptive to the media's claims. Language's ambiguity, however, makes it impossible for audiences to receive a message with the exact meaning that the sender intended. See, for comparison, Fiske, J., Television Culture (New York: Routledge, 1987)Google Scholar, and Entman, Robert M., “How the Media Affect What People Think: An Information Processing Approach,” Journal of Politics 51 (1989): 347–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Certain linguistic devices, such as hyperbole or metaphor, can simultaneously express different meanings. (In journalists’ parlance, such language is “sexy,” an attentiongrabbing hook for the potential reader.) The concept of auxesis, ironic overstatement or exaggeration, might best apply. A reporter might describe Martin Luther King, Jr., as a “martyr of the sit-in,” for example, to suggest the pain he underwent was at the service of a greater political or social cause. Typically, journalists assume that readers understand that they are exaggerating or making a comparison. However, when they use the word “martyr” in reporting a traumatic story, like the assassination of a beloved public figure, shocked and upset readers may recognize the literary device but favor a more literal reading of the deceased as a religious figure in an attempt to make sense of the event. This indistinctness enables audiences to construct actively and critically their own meanings using cultural resources, like religion, apart from the news media.

Moreover, even casual acquaintances can, in the course of a conversation, rework and reframe the media's claims using their own experiences and beliefs. This insight can be seen as a bridge between social movement theory and social construction. See W. A. Gamson and others, “Media Images and the Social Construction of Reality,” Annual Review of Sociology 18 (1991): 373–93; Gale Miller and James A. Holstein, “Constructing Social Problems: Context and Legacy,” in Constructionist Controversies: Issues in Social Problems Theory, ed. Gale Miller and James A. Holstein (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1993), 3–18; and Gale Miller and James A. Holstein, “Social Constructionism and Social Problems Work,” in Miller and Holstein, Constructionist Controversies, 131–52. The Internet is a particularly important forum through which people from different parts of the nation (or the world) may participate in reframing the media's claims. It allows users to speak publicly to strangers with an intimacy usually reserved for friends and family.

The media constructs not only social problems but also the types of people who inhabit those conditions. Audiences also play a role in determining these “people-types.” The media's use of hyperbole and metaphor enables readers to draw upon their cultural values or emotions—for example, morality and sympathy—when assigning these categories. By way of example, Donileen R. Loseke discusses the victim, someone judged as experiencing undeserved harm and, thus, worthy of sympathy, in her “Constructing Conditions, People, Morality, and Emotion: Expanding the Agenda of Constructionism,” in Miller and Holstein, Constructionist Controversies, 207–16. This emphasis on sympathy complements the understanding of the role of injustice in frame alignment. Loseke's work also resembles Orrin E. Klapp's investigation of the martyr. Most Americans define the martyr as one who is sacrificed for a worthy cause, suffering undeservedly and dying for the sake of the group. Moreover, martyrs are a powerful symbol for social movements, having an appeal beyond their group that unites large numbers of people sentimentally. See Klapp, Orrin E., Heroes, Villains, and Fools (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962)Google Scholar. Together, this emphasis on sentiment, sympathy, and injustice suggests the powerful appeal of martyrs and martyrdom to bystanders. The impact of the murder of Emmett Till on the emerging civil rights movement can serve as one example. It also suggests that the line between the victim and the martyr is not hard and fast. It is permeable, allowing one concept to mingle with and influence the other. Taking these historical and sociological analyses of popular martyrdom together, it is possible to see how a person framed by the media as the victim of injustice, under the right conditions, can be popularly canonized if he or she resonates with the popular martyr frame that already exists in American culture. (Although “frame” and “construction” are essentially synonymous sociologically, for the purposes of this study, “frame” refers to the general understanding of popular martyrdom as it exists in society at large. “Construction” refers to the specific application of that frame to someone to cast him or her as a popular martyr.) Those conditions depend upon what social movement theorists would call “political opportunity.” That is, the outsiders represented by the martyr must be in a position where they have garnered just enough sympathy that many bystanders take seriously their claim that they suffer injustice and deserve a place in the mainstream, here symbolized by heaven. As Moore might say, these outsiders must be on the verge of becoming insiders. Just such a set of circumstances occurred with the death of Matthew Shepard. Suffering homophobic violence when sympathy for gays and lesbians was growing, he was literally in the wrong place at the right time.

19. John Aravosis, “Matthew Shepard Online Resources Archive,” Ver. 3, October 14, 1998, http://www.wiredstrategies.com/shepard3.html, accessed October 21, 1998.

20. Steve Silberman, “Killing Mobilizes Netizens,” October 13, 1998, http://www.wired.com/nes/news/culture/story/15570.html, accessed October 13, 1998. According to this account, Larry Kramer also contacted Peter Jennings, ABC's news anchor. Brokaw, in a television special celebrating his retirement as anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” described Kramer as a long-time friend and credited the activist with earlier alerting him to the AIDS crisis and encouraging him to cover the story. “Tom Brokaw: Eyewitness to History,” NBC Television Network, November 26, 2004.

21. Silberman, “Killing Mobilizes Netizens”; Human Rights Campaign, “Apparent Hate Crime Against Gay Student in Wyoming Highlights the Need for Congress to Pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” October 9, 1998. Note that there was some initial confusion over the number and background of the perpetrators.

22. “Gay Man Beaten and Left for Dead; 2 Are Charged,” New York Times, October 10, 1998, A9; Diane Carman, “Gay Bashing Is a Hate Crime,” Denver Post, October 10, 1998, as found on Aravosis, “Matthew Shepard Online Resources Archive, www.wiredstrategies.com/shepard4. html, accessed October 21, 1998; Chris Bull, “All Eyes Were Watching,” Advocate (November 24, 1998): 33–37.

23. Aravosis, “Matthew Shepard Online Resources Archive.” See also “Gay Student Brutally Beaten; 4 Arrested,” Los Angeles Times, October 10, 1998, A16; and James Brooke, “Gay Man Dies from Attack, Fanning Outrage and Debate,” New York Times, October 13, 1998, A1. The impact of the AP/World Wide Photos photograph of Shepard is comparable to that of Jet's photograph of Till. Although not as shocking, the image certainly suggests innocence and so elicits empathy from viewers for both Shepard and, by extension, other sexual minorities.

24. Aravosis, “Matthew Shepard Online Resources Archive”; Jim Geringer, “Comments by Governor Jim Geringer on the Matthew Shepard Incident,” Dignity/USA, dignity@american.edu, October 12, 1998, e-mail to author.

25. The Most Rev. Frank Griswold, “A Statement from the Presiding Bishop,” October 13, 1998, http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/presiding-bishop/shepard.html, accessed October 18, 1998; Dignity/ USA, “Dignity/USA Mourns the Senseless Death of Matthew Shepard,” dignity@american.edu, October 13, 1998, e-mail to author; Rev. Troy Perry, “On the Passing of Matthew Shepard,” http://www.ufmcc.com/violence3.htm, accessed October 31, 1998.

26. Brooke, “Gay Man Dies from Attack.” Isaac's statement is the only example I found of a political leader using the crucifixion metaphor. The article, however, later deflates her comparison and reasserts the hate-crime victim persona by describing how other gay leaders compared Shepard to a dead coyote nailed “to a ranch fence as a warning to future intruders.” Loffreda describes the position in which Shepard was found in Losing Matt Shepard, 5.

27. Aravosis, “Matthew Shepard Online Resources Archive”; “Letters for Matt Shepard,” Branding Iron, October 13, 1998, http://bi. uwyo.edu/opinion99/matt10-13.htm, accessed October 18, 1998; “Matthew Shepard's Memorial Web Site,” October 12–14, 1998, http://www.websine.com/shepard/thoughts.html, accessed November 1, 1998.

28. All quotes are from “Matthew Shepard's Memorial Web Site.”

29. Joseph Trevino, “Religious Leaders Decry Wyoming Man's Slaying,” Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1998, B5.

30. Integrity, “Integrity Response,” Dignity/USA, dignity@ american.edu, October 13, 1998, e-mail to author; Jonathan D. Rockoff, “We Must Not Be Afraid and We Must Not Run Away,” Providence Journal, October 17, 1998, http://projo.com/report/pjb/stories/01333542.htm, accessed October 18, 1998.

31. “Obituary: Matthew Wayne Shepard,” Branding Iron, October 17, 1998, http://bi.uwyo.edu/news99/obituary.htm, accessed October 18, 1998; “Friends and Strangers Mourn Gay Student in Wyoming,” New York Times, October 17, 1998, A11; Megan Shepard, “Matthew… . October 11, 1998,” in “Requiem Eucharist and the Celebration of Life for Matthew Shepard,” October 17, 1998, http://www.matthewshepard.org/html/bulletin.html, accessed November 1, 1998.

32. “Gay Wyoming Student Laid to Rest,” New York Times, October 17, 1998, http://nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Gay-Attack.html, accessed October 18, 1998; Carla Crowder, “A Day of Mourning for Shepard,” Rocky Mountain News, October 17, 1998, http://insidedenver.com/news/1017matt2.shtml, accessed October 18, 1998; Mark Miller, “The Final Days and Nights of a Gay Martyr,” Newsweek, December 21, 1998, 30–31; see also Bull, “All Eyes Were Watching.”

33. “Pathfinder Boards—Time's 1998 Man of the Year,” December 4–20, 1998, http://boards.pathfinder.com/cgi-bin/webx?7@^128722@ee981c)/122, accessed December 10, 1998; “Who Got the Votes?” Time, December 28, 1998 / January 4, 1998, 22. “Time Digital,” an online version of the print magazine, did note that fans of pro-wrestler Mick Foley were primarily responsible for the anti-gay rhetoric. Eventually, while Shepard received the largest number of votes, Time did not name him as its Person of the Year, saying: “Traditionally Time does not consider someone who is deceased for its Person of the Year.” “Man of the Year: Mick vs. Matthew,” December 21, 1998, http://www.pathfinder.come/time/digital/daily/0,2822,17195,00.html, accessed October 12, 1999. So far, I have found only one memorial Web site that used religious language as vigorously as “dwellej” or “ChangeMaker”: “St. Matthew's Passion,” http://newark.rutgers.edu/∼lcrew/shepard.html, accessed March 25, 2000.

34. Judy and Dennis Shepard, interview by Katie Couric, “Dateline,” NBC Television Network, February 5, 1999.

35. Thernstrom, “The Crucifixion of Matthew Shepard.”

36. Frank Rich, “Summer of Matthew Shepard,” New York Times, July 3, 1999, A11; Robert W. Black, “Gay Student Remembered in Wyoming,” Associated Press, October 13, 1999, http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/19991013/us/gay_attack_23.html, accessed October 13, 1999. It should be noted that Fenimore herself expressed some ambiguity about the martyr construction similar to the Shepards’. On the evening of October 12, 1999, in a national chat sponsored by MTV and gay.com, she emphatically stated: “Matthew is NOT a martyr.” Later, in an appeal for a community effort against hate crimes, she then cast her friend as working from beyond the grave: “Matt can't do it alone.” “Mrs. Shepard Speaks,” September 18, 1999, http://www.wiredstrategies.com/mrsshep.html, accessed October 13, 1999.

37. Melissa Etheridge, “Scarecrow,” on Breakdown, Island Records compact disk 314-546 608-2; Elton John, “American Triangle,” on Songs from the West Coast, Universal compact disk 586330. It should be noted that, though John wrote the music for and recorded “American Triangle,” Bernie Taupin, John's long-time collaborator, penned the lyrics.

38. Each of these poems appears in Gibson, Scott, ed., Blood and Tears: Poems for Matthew Shepard (New York: Painted Leaf Press, 1999)Google Scholar.

39. Anatomy of a Hate Crime: The Matthew Shepard Story, dir. Tim Hunter, MTV Films, 2001.

40. The Matthew Shepard Story, dir. Roger Spottiswoode, NBC, 2002.

41. The Laramie Project, dir. Moisés Kaufman, HBO Films, 2002.

42. Ibid.

43. Patrick Healy, “’The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later’ Draws 50,000 Theatergoers,” New York Times, October 15, 2009, http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/200910/15/the-laramie-project-10-years-laterdraws-50000-theatergoers/?scp=2&sq=the_laramie_project:_ten_years_later&st=cse, accessed October 15, 2009.

44. Anne Midgette, “Connecting Theater to Sexuality and Faith,” April 5, 2007, http://theater.nytimes.com/2007/04/05/theater/reviews/05pass.html?sq=”Connecting Theater to Sexuality and Faith”&st=cse&adxn nl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1276862413-NZHNMcXvWz+1k/586Xftqg, accessed February 2, 2009; “From East to West: Easter Sunday,” April 8, 2007, http://fromeasttowest.wordpress.com/2007/04/08/easter-sunday, accessed June 9, 2007. A Web site for the production can be found at http://www.matthewpassion.com.

45. An image of “The Passion of Matthew Shepard” can be found at http://puffin.Creighton.edu/Jesuit/andre/shepard.html. It is accompanied by an anonymous poem about Shepard that describes him as “more scarecrow than human/hung on a cross.” Information about these sites can be found at “Memorials,” http//www.matthewshepard. org/site/PageServer?pagename=mat_Memorials, accessed June 18, 2010.

46. “Find a Grave,” http://www.findagrave.com, accessed May 26, 2002; “In Memory of Matthew,” http://groups.yahoo.com/In_Memory_Of_Matthew, accessed December 12, 2003; “MatthewShepardUpdate,” http://groups.yahoo.com/MatthewShepardUpdate, accessed December 12, 2003; “MatthewsPlaceForum,” http://groups.yahoo.com/MatthewsPlaceForum, December 12, 2003. Facebook, for example, offers “Remember Matthew Shepard,” http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/group.php?gid=2216104809&ref=ts, while MySpace features “Matthew Shepard, Remembered” http://www.myspace.com/ripmatthewshepard. A search for “Matthew Shepard” on YouTube turns up numerous video tributes and memorials to Shepard, as well as clips from films about him and even an interview with Shepard from when he attended Catawba College, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt8fA8x_Eeg. See, for example, a vigil sponsored by the Texas Equality Foundation and held at the University Baptist Church in Austin, Texas: “Texas: Hope Not Hate: Candlelight Vigil to Remember Hate Crime Victims,” http://www.sldn.org/blog/archives/texas-hope-not-hate-candlelight-vigil-to-rememberhate-crime-victims, accessed June 18, 2010.

47. “Dennis Shepard's Statement to the Court 11/4/99,” http:// www.advocate.com/html/specials/shepard/dennis_shepard.html, accessed November 6, 1999; Vicki Sheff-Cahan, “Matthew's Legacy,” People, December 20, 1999, 98.

48. Shepard, Judy with Barrett, Jon, The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie and a World Transformed (New York: Hudson Street Press, 2009), 166, 162Google Scholar. In her effort to reassert her son as “Matt Shepard,” Mrs. Shepard discusses frankly her son's troubled emotional life, drug use, rape, and the fact that he was infected with HIV at the time of his death. Her story of the doe, however, recalls accounts of angels comforting Christ in Gethsemane and Christ's appearance to Stephen at his stoning.

49. Shepard, , The Meaning of Matthew, 183 Google Scholar.

50. Loffreda, , Losing Matt Shepard, 26, 19Google Scholar.

51. Loseke, “Constructing Conditions, People, Morality, and Emotion.” Tony Kushner, for example, graphically gave this sympathy a religious dimension in his 1991 Angels in America, which pointedly casts a gay man with AIDS as a reluctant prophet. The play's tremendous popularity with audiences across the nation and its recent revival on Broadway suggest that many Americans can accept homosexuals as not only sympathetic victims but also as religious figures in their own right.

52. Michael Cooper, “Killing Shakes Complacency of Gay Rights Movement,” New York Times, October 21, 1998, A1.

53. “San Francisco AIDS Foundation: HIV/AIDS Timeline,” http://www.sfaf.org/custom/timeline.aspx?l=en&y=0000&t=all, accessed June 19, 2010; Linda Greenhouse, “The Supreme Court: Homosexual Rights; Justices, 6-3, Legalize Gay Sexual Conduct in Sweeping Reversal of Court's ‘86 Ruling, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/27/us/supreme-court-homosexual-rights-justices-6-3-legalize-gay-sexual-conduct.html?scp=3&sq=supreme%20court%20overturns%20bowers&st=cse, accessed June 18, 2010; “Psychologists Reject Gay ‘Therapy’,” August 6, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/06/health/06gay.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=psychologists%20reject%20gay%20%22therapy%22&st=cse, accessed August 6, 2009; Amanda Marcotte, “What Houston's Election of a Gay Mayor Tells Us About ‘Red State’ Texas,” December 21, 2009, http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/index.html/144712/, accessed December 21, 2009; National Conference of State Legislatures, “Same Sex Marriage, Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships,” April 2010, http://www.ncsl.org/IssuesResearch/HumanServices/SameSexMarriage/tabid/16430/Default.aspx, accessed June 18, 2010; Brad Shannon, “Voters Supporting Same-Sex Partner Rights,” November 4, 2009, http://www.thenewstribune.com/2009/11/04/940904/voters-supporting-same-sex-partner.html, accessed November 4, 2009. There might be a thin connection between Shepard's death and the issue of same-sex marriage, but that connection is nevertheless often made online. Consider, for example, this straightforward statement: “The best way to honor Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was brutally murdered ten years ago in Laramie, Wyoming, is to legalize same-sex marriage.” Davi Napoleon, “Remembering a Cruel Murder: Laramie Revisited,” The Faster Times, October 4, 2009, http://thefastertimes.com/theatertalk/2009/10/04/333/, accessed June 18, 2010.

54. Rich, “Summer of Matthew Shepard;” John Cloud, “The New Face of Gay Power,” Time, October 13, 2003, 54; Alan Solomon, “Seeking Brokeback's Backdrop in Wyoming and Alberta,” Los Angeles Times, February 5, 2006, http://travel.latimes.com/articles/la-tr-ntb5feb05, accessed February 13, 2006. Both author Annie Proulx, who wrote the original short story that inspired the film, and Brokeback's screenwriter, Dianna Osanna, have drawn similar connections between Jack's death and Shepard’s. As Osanna noted: “It [Shepard's murder] was horrifying. It felt like an eerie retelling of Annie's story and our screenplay.” Annie Proulx, Larry McMurtry, and Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay (New York: Scribner, 2005), 146. Lydia Saad, “Americans’ Acceptance of Gay Relations Crosses 50% Threshold,” May 25, 2010, http://www.gallup.com/poll/135764/Americans-Acceptance-Gay-Relations-Crosses-Threshold.aspx, accessed June 17, 2010. This poll also marked the first time that more men than women in America accepted same-sex relations. Jeffrey M. Jones, “Majority of Americans Continue to Oppose Gay Marriage,” May 27, 2009, http://www.gallup.com/poll/118378/majority-americans-continue-oppose-gay-marriage.aspx, accessed June 17, 2010; Scott S. Greenberger, “One Year Later, Nation Divided on Gay Marriage,” Boston Globe, May 15, 2005, http://www.boston.com/news/specials/gay_marriage/articles/2005/05/15/one_year_later_nation_divided_on_gay_marriage, accessed June 17, 2010; Elizabeth Mehren, “Homosexuals Finding More Acceptance, Poll Says,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 11, 2004, A6; Mark Gillespie, “Americans Support Hate Crimes Legislation That Protects Gays,” April 7, 1999, http://www.gallup.com/poll/3943/Americans-Support-Hate-Crimes-Legislation-Protects-Gays.aspx, accessed June 17, 2010; Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, “Summary of Findings: Less Opposition to Gay Marriage, Adoption and Military Service,” March 22, 2006, http:// people-press.org/reposrts/print.php3?PageID=1043, accessed June 11, 2007; “Hamilton College Gay Issues Poll,” http://www.hamilton.edu/news/gayissuespoll/appendix.html, accessed June 11, 2007; “CNN/ Opinion Research Corporation Poll. Feb. 12–15, 2010,” http://www.pollingreport.com/civil.htm, accessed June 17, 2010.

55. “Plan to Strengthen Civil Rights,” November 10, 2008, http://change.gov/agenda/civil_rights_agenda, accessed June 17, 2010. It should be noted, however, that Obama did not support same-sex marriage in his platform, favoring civil unions instead. Kerry Eleveld, “View from Washington: Pride?” June 14, 2010, http://advocate.com/Politics/Washington_D_C_/View_From_Washington_Pride, accessed June 17, 2010.

56. “Obama Inks Defense Bill with Hate Crimes Provision,” October 28, 2009, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091029/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_defense/print, accessed October 28, 2009; Ben Feller, “Obama Hails Expansion of Federal Hate Crimes Legislation,” October 28, 2009, http:www.google.com/hostednews/ap/articleALeqM5h8wh- Gi9YvYJCiaY9Z-mYoVm…, accessed October 28, 2009; Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Signs Hate Crimes Bill,” New York Times, October 28, 2009, http:thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/Obama-signs-hatecrimes- bill, accessed October 28, 2009.

57. Sudhir Venkatesh, “2009 Hate Crimes Report,” New York Times, December 14, 2009, http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/14/2009-hate-crime-report/?scp=1&sq=2008%20FBI%20hate%20crime&st=cse, accessed June 18, 2010. For a recently well-publicized case of an antigay hate crime, see Arek Sarkissian II, “Police: Two Marines Beat Gay Man Near Johnson Square in Downtown Savannah,” Savannah Morning News, June 16, 2010, http://savannahnow.com/latest-news/2010-06-12/police-two-marines-beat-gay-man-near-johnson-square-downtown-savannah, accessed June 16, 2010. Andrew Zajac, “No Changes in Restrictions on Gay Blood Donors,” Los Angeles Times, June 12, 2010, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-blood-gays-20100612,0,5423475.story, accessed June 18, 2010; National Conference of State Legislatures, “Same Sex Marriage, Civil Unions and Domestic Partnerships.” An online summary of Vargas's report, “New Details Emerge in Matthew Shepard Murder,” can be found at: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=277685&page=1, accessed June 16, 2010. The authors of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later also interviewed one of the murderers, who admitted that he hated homosexuals, adding “Matt Shepard needed killing.” As the New York Times noted: “His comment stood in contrast to a “20/20” report on ABC in 2004 that left the impression that the murder might not have been a hate crime but rather a drugfueled robbery gone wrong” (Healy, “’The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later’ Draws 50,000 Theater Goers”). Andrew Sullivan, “Afterlife,” November 22, 1999, http://www.indegayforum.org/articles/sullivan2.html, accessed January 7, 2000; Patrick Letellier, “Shepard Death Still Yields Sympathy, Hate,” October 7, 2003, http://www.gay.com/content/tools/printe.html?coll=news_articles&sernum+2003/10/07/3&navepath…, accessed November 1, 2006; Gabriel Arana, “The Deification of Matthew Shepard,” American Prospect, September 4, 2009, http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=the_deification_of_matthew_shepard, accessed May 28, 2010. Note that Arana vigorously uses the same religious language that “dwellej” did in arguing against Shepard's popular martyrdom.