This statement about the death of Matthew Sheperd.

[lkeenan@norby.latah.lib.id.us (Lori Keenan)]

This eloquent statement speaks to me.  Lori Keenan


>
>A message from The Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, Chaplain, to the whole
>Trinity
>College (Hartford, Conn., USA) community...
>
>
>Chaplain's Reflection:
>
>I saw on the news today that Matthew Shepard died.  He was the 22 year
>old man
>from Wyoming who was beaten and tortured and left to die for no reason
>other
>than he was a homosexual.
>
>This tragic murder has raised a national debate again, the kind of
>periodic
>soul-searching our society goes through whenever a crime of hate
>startles us
>into
>awareness.  The burning of Black churches, the bombing of innocent
>people, the
>death of a shy young man from Wyoming:  these events suddenly shake us
>out of
>complacency and remind us that fear, prejudice and rage are always the
>shadows
>just beyond the light of our reason.  And so people suddenly start to
>speak
>out. There are voices of outrage and grief.  Voices of sorrow and
>demands to
>know why such a thing could happen.
>
>And predictably, there are also defensive voices:  the governor of
>Wyoming
>trying to explain why his state has no laws to protect people from hate
>crimes
>and the leadership of what is called the Christian "right wing" trying
>to
>explain why their national ads against homosexuality don't influence
>people to
>commit such violence against gays and lesbians.
>
>In the days to come, these many voices will fill our media and the
>cultural
>con- sciousness it imprints until we are once again lulled into the more
>familiar patterns of our lives, dozing off as a nation until the next
>tragedy
>rings the alarm of despair.
>
>As the chaplain for our own community, I would like to invite us all to
>consider Matthew's death in another way.  Not through the clamor or
>denials,
>not through the shouts or cries of anger:  but rather, through the
>silence of
>his death, the silence of that young man hanging on his cross of pain
>alone in
>the emptiness of a Wyoming night, the silence that ultimately killed him
>as
>surely as the beatings he endured.
>
>Silence killed Matthew Shepard. The silence of
>Christians who know that our scriptures on homosexuality are few and
>murky in
>interpretation and far outweighed by the words of a savior whose only
>comment
>on human relationships was to call us to never judge but only to love.
>The
>silence of well meaning educated people who pretend to have an
>enlightened
>view of homosexuality while quietly tolerating the abuse of gays and
>lesbians
>in their own communities.  The silence of our elected officials who have
>the
>authority to make changes but prefer to count votes.
>
>The silence of the majority of "straight" Americans who shift
>uncomfortably
>when confronted by the thought that gays and lesbians may be no
>different from
>themselves, save for the fact that they are walking targets for bigotry,
>disrespect, cheap humor, and apparently, of murder.
>
>Crimes of hate may live in shouts of rage, but they are born in
>silence.  Here
>at Trinity, I hope we will all listen to that silence.  Before we jump
>to
>decry Matthew's
>senseless death or before we seek to rationalize it with loud
>disclaimers:  I
>hope we will just hear the silence.  A young man's heart has ceased to
>beat.
>Hear the silence of that awful truth.  It is the silence of death.  It
>is the
>silence that descends on us like a shroud.
>
>At Trinity, as in Wyoming, we are men and women surrounded by the
>silence of
>our own fear.  Our fear of those who are different.  Our fear of being
>identified with the
>scapegoat.  Our fear of taking an unpopular position for the sake of
>those who
>cannot stand alone.  Our fear of social and religious change.  Our fear
>comes
>in many forms but it always comes silently.  A whispered joke.  A glance
>to
>look away from the truth.  A quick shake of the head to deny any
>complicity in
>the pain of others.  These silent acts of our own fear of homosexuality
>are
>acted out on this campus every day just as they are acted out every day
>in
>Wyoming.  Through silence, we give ourselves permission to practice what
>we
>pretend to abhor.  With
>silence, we condemn scores of our neighbors to live in the shadows of
>hate.
>In silence, we observe the suffering of any group of people who have
>been
>declared expendable by our society.
>
>As a person of faith, I will listen, as we all will, to the many voices
>which
>will eulogize Matthew Shepard.  I will carry that part of our national
>shame
>on my
>shoulders.  But I will also listen to the silence which speaks much more
>eloquently still to the truth behind his death.  I will listen and I
>will
>remember.  And I will renew my resolve never to allow this silence to
>have the
>last word.  Not for Matthew.  Not for gay men or lesbian women.  Not for
>any
>person in our society of any color or condition who has been singled out
>for
>persecution.  Not in my church. Not in my nation.  Not in Wyoming.  And
>not at
>Trinity College.
>
>"No man can have society upon his own terms.  If he seeks it, he must
>serve it
>too."  - Ralph Waldo Emerson
>--
>




Lori Keenan, Director
Latah County Library District
110 S. Jefferson Street
Moscow, ID  83843
tel: (208)882-3923
fax: (208) 882-5098
e-mail: lkeenan@norby.latah.lib.id.us