The parents of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was murdered in Wyoming in 1998, will be the grand marshals of the D.C. Pride Parade on Saturday. Judy Shepard said the country was “well on the road to acceptance” of LGBT people nationwide. But “in the last couple of years, it’s been really hard. We’ve seen hate incidents pick up.”... King Jun 7, 2018 The term “hate crime” was not widely heard before Byrd’s murder. His suffering, and name, inspired the Texas James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act and the federal Hate Crimes Prevention act of 2009, which is also named for Matthew Shepard, a college student murdered for being gay.