Matthew Shepard: An Icon of the Queer God

HUFFINGTON POST
By Rev. Daniel C. Storrs

This icon of Matthew was painted by Fr. William McNichols

A young man is alive but unconscious. His broken, bloodied and disfigured body is tied up and left for the beasts of the field to satisfy their savage cravings. His body is perfectly still, devoid of all movement, almost mythical to the nature that surrounds it. This man we have just beheld could easily be Jesus on the day of his crucifixion. However, the man we have gazed upon is not Jesus, dying some 2,000 years ago on a cross, but rather our brother Matthew Shepard, tied to a fence in October 1998. Matthew is an icon of God, as we all are, a child created in the image and beauty of the Divine. Matthew is specifically an icon of the Queer God, as found in the hearts and faces of all those who were born outside the perceived normal realms of straight sexual orientation or gender identity. [link]