Napoleon Bonaparte once said that "it is the cause, not death, that makes the martyr." Matthew Shepard was only nineteen when two men brutally beat him and tied him to a prairie fence simply because he was gay. He ultimately died from his injuries, his life and future stolen due to prejudice and ignorance. And so Shepard became a martyr, a symbol of the cause, and a rallying cry for equality in the LGBTQ+ community at the end of the twentieth century. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were many problems in the LGBTQ+ community, the most prominent of which was the AIDS epidemic. (insert information about the first news story published about AIDS) After this information became widespread, many people began calling AIDS a “gay disease” and for many years the “gay plague.” Correlating this disease with the highly secretive LGBTQ+ community, many queer individuals felt that the community was gaining a bad reputation. Gay rights activists held the second national March on Washington for lesbian and gay rights in 1987, bringing the “first national coverage” of ACT UP, AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, which fought to help “ improve the lives of AIDS victims”. The AIDS epidemic has led people to become aware of a part of society that had previously remained closed and voiceless. People could no longer ignore homosexuality because the disease did not discriminate and infected everyone. But because AIDS was incurable and had been blamed on gays who had lived underground for so long, it created a perfect storm that sparked fear and panic. Although the AIDS situation brought awareness to the queer community, it was still highly secretive. Transition to no laws protecting gays, insert on gay marriage scandals. Perhaps one of the most significant people in the LGBTQ+ community was Matthew Shepard. Shepard was born in Caspar, Wyoming on December 1, 1976, to Judy and Dennis Shepard. Throughout his life, Shepard has faced several traumatic events. During his senior year, he went on a trip with his school friends to Morocco where he was raped, beaten and robbed. During his childhood, Shepard moved home several times, once to Saudi Arabia during his freshman year of high school, then to Colorado with his friends, then back to Caspar. He also attended several colleges before settling on the University of Wyoming, where he was active in many LGBTQ+ rights groups. Shepard believed that attending a school in his hometown would keep him safe, which ultimately turned out to be the opposite of the truth. On October 7, 1998, Shepard was lured to The Fireside Lounge, a local bar, by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson who saw Shepard as an easy target to rob. McKinney and Henderson then took Shepard to a "rural area" where they severely beat him with the butt of a gun, tied him to a "split fence" and left him to die in the cold. Shepard was discovered just 18 hours later by a cyclist who thought he was a scarecrow. He was rushed to hospital in a coma with hypothermia. With a severely damaged brain stem and several injuries, Shepard was announced dead on October 12, 1998 at 12:53 am. Almost immediately after Shepard's death, a bloody gun and many of Shepard's personal effects were found in McKinney's truck. This led to his and Henderson's arrest. They were found guilty of murder and sentenced.