What evil has this man done?”  An exasperated Pontius Pilate asked the crowd this question after he judged that Jesus was guilty of no crime.  But, for their own reasons, the people insisted on violence; Pilate capitulated and sentenced Jesus — an innocent man — to die.  In equal parts, both Pilate and the mob had blood on their hands for Jesus’ death.

“What evil has this man done?”  Pilate’s words echo in my mind as I remember Matthew Shepard, a young gay man who was beaten, tortured, and left to die on a lonely country road in Wyoming in 1998.  I remember the television news that showed the wooden fence where Matthew spent his last hours, alone and in pain.  

I remember hearing the eyewitness testimony that described Matthew’s face as caked in blood, except for where his tears washed the skin clean.  And I remember that Matthew’s murder was the first time that I (as a naive fifteen-year old) realized lesbian and gay people are sometimes hurt or killed due to their sexual orientation.

Source:  Bondings 2.0