The Honorable Edmund G. Brown, Jr. Governor of California State Capitol, Suite 1173 Sacramento, CA 95814 September 23, 2018 Dear Governor Brown, Twenty years ago this October, my son Matthew was murdered in a vicious anti-gay hate crime in Laramie, Wyoming. Local law enforcement did a wonderful job investigating the crime and bringing the two…
Friends of the Matthew Shepard Foundation: I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Joe Foster, and I recently joined the team at the Matthew Shepard Foundation as Development Director. For almost a decade, I have had the pleasure of being part of the LGBTQ+ movement as a fundraiser for organizations…
Like the rest of us in the civil and human rights community, and everyone who loves justice, I am deeply troubled by the very likely prospect of our Supreme Court becoming yet another instrument of the forces in our country that suppress minority voters, excuse anti-LGBTQ bigotry, usurp women’s reproductive freedom, abolish worker protections and…
We have some really exciting news in the form of a partnership! Over the next few months, we are teaming up with our friends at the Tectonic Theater Project to spread our message of erasing hate. And this campaign will culminate in a special celebrity reading of The Laramie Project in NYC! Twenty years ago,…
Contact: Sara Grossman Tel. (303) 830-7400 x10 Cell: (727) 560-6476 Email: sara@matthewshepard.org Website: www.matthewshepard.org Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/420471028424731/ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Orlando, FL — The Matthew Shepard Foundation and MillerCoors have teamed up once again for a Stay Loud, Be Proud hate crimes training. The beer brand has really stepped up over the last several years with…
Happy Valentine’s Day! We hope you are spreading a little love where you live today, and if not, we have a challenge for you. Today marks the launch of our 20th anniversary education campaign, the Heart/Fence Challenge. We have teamed up with transgender activist and Point of Pride founder Aydian Dowling to help remind people…
Yesterday, we learned that the federal government will be rejecting transgender bathroom bill cases. They won’t investigate. They won’t take action. They will be complicit in anything that happens to transgender students under this governance. We know just how harmful this is to LGBTQ+ youth. Adolescence is hard enough for kids at it is, but…
Colorado deserves better. Last week, GOP state lawmakers shut down funding to the Colorado Civil Rights Division–a blow that felt like it came from Washington. The commission is at the center of the pending U.S. Supreme Court case involving the refusal of Lakewood baker Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop to make a wedding cake for…
The Matthew Shepard Foundation was recently alerted to a growing problem with hate crimes in Minnesota–specifically in the process of reporting. Via the Star Tribune: After a homemade bomb ripped through a window of Bloomington’s Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center last summer, the FBI quickly flew evidence to its Virginia lab in a desperate search for…
Friends of MSF: Last week, you may have read that the Trump administration recommended 7 words to not be used by the Centers for Disease Control: “fetus,” “transgender,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.” We know that hate, and the violence caused by hate, always begins with words. Name-calling, teasing, bullying, cyber bullying; they’re all…