BY PAUL BARTON
Enquirer Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mike DeWine took to the Senate floor Wednesday to denounce those who tried to disrupt last week's funeral for Matthew Shepard, the gay college student who was brutally beaten and tied to a fence near Laramie, Wyo.
"The people who did this crime are scum. And the people who intruded on the privacy of the family funeral to mock the deceased are low lifes. And they deserve the contempt of all civilized people," said Mr. DeWine, R-Ohio.
Mr. Shepard, 21, a University of Wyoming student, was pistol-whipped so badly his skull was shattered, then tied to a fence and left in the cold to die. He went into a coma and died five days later, on Oct. 12. At his funeral Friday in Casper, Wyo., protesters shouted that Mr. Shepard should not have a Christian service because of his lifestyle. Two men, both also 21, have been charged in the death.
Mr. DeWine said he felt that the national attitude toward the death "is so very important" that he wanted to speak out about it. He said it "should be self-evident that in a country of liberty, rule of law and respect for human rights, we should condemn the murder of any people. We should, as a logical consequence of this principle, condemn the murder of people who have been killed because the murderers disapprove of some aspect of the murder victims' personal behavior."
While the funeral protesters have First Amendment rights, Mr. DeWine said, "What I wish to underscore today is that I have a right -- a right to tell the truth about their conduct."
