And in Washington, D.C., Episcopal Church leaders have interred the ashes of gay college student Matthew Shepard in the National Cathedral. In 1998, Shepard, who was just 21 years old, was lured from a Laramie, Wyoming, bar, robbed for $20 cash, lashed to a fence, bludgeoned in the head with a pistol and left to die on the prairie. His killing shocked the conscience of the nation and spurred the LGBTQ rights movement. In 2009, Congress passed the Matthew Shepard Act, which expanded hate crimes laws to cover those targeted over their sexual orientation.
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