Matthew Shepard Story
Matthew Shepard was born on December 1, 1976 to Judy and Dennis Shepard in Casper, Wyoming. He went to public schools until his junior year in high school when he moved with his family to Saudi Arabia. Matthew finished his schooling at an American school in Switzerland. His peers said he was easy to talk to, and made friends easily. Matt’s college career eventually took him back to Wyoming where he studied political science, foreign relations and languages at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.
The horrific events that took place shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998 would become one of the most notorious anti-gay hate crimes in American history. Two men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, abducted Matt and drove him to a remote area east of Laramie, Wyoming. He was tied to a split-rail fence where the two men severely assaulted him with the butt of a pistol. He was beaten and left to die in the cold of the night. Almost 18 hours later, he was found by a bicyclist who initially mistook him for a scarecrow. Matt died on October 12 at 12:53 a.m. at Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado with his family by his side. His memorial service was attended by friends and family from around the world.
Ingroup and outgroup dynamics in this story is related because Matthew himself could be in an ingroup by beening gay himself and with the gay community coming together as a whole and wanting to be treated equally as heterosexual get. With the moral superiority that the gays standards and what they believe in. The two men that beat him to death would have considered him as a out group because he was gay and they consider that was not ok and that he didn’t belong with there ingroup.
The dramaturgical theory would be everyone that is taking this to another step and trying to make this crime stop and replace hate with understanding, compassion and acceptance. After this was considered an hate crime his parents was taking...