by Patrick Jordan

About the author: Patrick Jordan is a writer for Commonweal.

The brutal murder in October 1998 of Matthew Shepard—the twenty-one-year-old gay college student in Wyoming who was beaten and tied to a cross- like fence to die—struck at the conscience of the nation. It was not only the sheer sadism and rancor of the crime that affected Americans, but the sense that Shepard’s rights had been violated simply for being who he was.

Crimes and Prejudice

Hate-motivated crimes have their own pedigree, their own smell. They are acts of criminal violence—among them kidnapping, torture, and murder—but their destructive capacity stems from a motivational intensity that sets them apart. When James Byrd, Jr., a disabled African-American, was dragged to his death in Jasper, Texas, in June...