What good came from the Matthew Shepard case?

                 As much controversy as this story did raise there was some good that came out of it. Not only did it raise awareness of this growing problem but it also gave Matthews family and friends the chance to reveal their views on the situation.

 As we read in the play, there was a parade that went on like every other year but the year of Matthews death there was an extra group of people at the end of the parade that were walking in honor of Matthew. This group started out small but grew to be longer then the parade itself, people were not afraid to recognize Matthew and they wanted to be sure others did the same. The play itself also was a successful way of raising awareness, classes like ours probably could have researched the case but there would not have been a way to get so many perspectives in just one place. The creators of this play did a wonderful job getting perspectives from all across the town of Laramie, which made the play much more effective. Another example from the play that raised awareness of a problem like gays being discriminated against was the large number of people who turned out for Matthews funeral. People were willing to stand outside in order to show their support for the Shepard family.

The many perspectives that were shown in the play helped the overall message that was sent. The interviews with other homosexual people proved that there were other people out there like Matthew, but they were not open about their sexuality like Matthew was. I think that making this situation known to others will help the discrimination lower because by reading this play it is apparent that what the Shepard family went through was very difficult.