About Matthew Shepard

The local clergy - ministers, priests and rabbis - who make up the Village Ministerium stand appalled before the brutality visited upon Matthew Shepard, the gay college student beaten to death last week. While we deplore the bigotry and hatred that motivates such acts, we also confess that the religious community as a whole, and our particular denominations and traditions, have contributed to such attitudes by their treatment of, and teaching about, homosexual persons. We pledge ourselves to work within our congregations and faith communities to counter these deeply ingrained prejudices and to present and alternative voice to that of the so-called "Religious Right", a voice of welcome and full inclusion to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in faith.