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  DAVE HILL/Daily Bruin Senior Staff After travelling 3,000 miles, Warren Blumenfeld spoke to five Monday in a lecture expected to attract at least 12, though with room for more than 100 people. Later, the LGBT Center celebrated its fifth anniversary.

By Timothy Kudo

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

The killing of Matthew Shepard should have changed things, but it didn’t.

“Matt was my constant reminder of how good life could be, and finally, how hurtful,” Judy Shepard told a crowd that silently wept with the sound of sniffles revealing their sadness.

As Shepard spoke of the death of her son who was murdered a year ago because he was gay, the details were easily dictated. But, everyone seemed to see through her eyes of two years ago.

From her many hours spent travelling to Laramie – the Wyoming town where her son was murdered – with the “most basic hope that he would stay alive till we could get to him,” to her shock at not recognizing the face she cared for until college, Shepard spoke without hesitation.

“One of his eyes was partially open and you could see his blue eyes,” she said to the group attending the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Campus Resource Center “celebration.”

“Then, at 12:53 a.m., Monday, Oct. 12, Matt was no longer with us,” she said.

After she said it, the moment stood there, a reminder to those listening of the dangers of intolerance and hatred that still pervades an America with hate crime laws that don’t include the words “on the basis of sexual orientation.”

“This moment is better than it has ever been for us, and I hope, worse than it will ever be,” said Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl, the first openly gay member of the state legislature.

Earlier in the day, events were held to address the history of homophobia and its effect on current times.

At a lecture expected to attract 12-30 people, in a room prepared for at least 100, LGBT scholar Warren Blumenfeld, who flew 3,000 miles to UCLA, waited for people to come.

At 2:30 p.m. when he was supposed to start, five people wandered in to Charles E. Young Grand Salon. Nobody else came.

“It’s disappointing,” Blumenfeld said.

The Resource Center is the proof that small victories have been won at places like UCLA and the 23 other colleges they exist at.

At the same time, its existence at all is in a sense, a sign of how far there is still to go.

If there were no need for a LGBT resource center “it would be a very wonderful day, though I don’t think it will be in my lifetime,” said Ronni Sanlo, the center’s director

Sanlo noted that every day, she receives report of a hate crime perpetrated.

These things aren’t always public, and they’re not as brutal as the Matthew Shepard murder, but it is a reminder to those who may forget that homophobia is an everyday part of life for certain people passing by on Bruin walk.

For Kuehl, who graduated from UCLA in 1962, her time as a student here “was one of sadness.”

She was a member of a sorority until they found out she was a lesbian.

She remembered not being able to tell her parents what happened and driving from home to Westwood every Monday night to pretend to go to her sorority meeting, but instead sitting in a restaurant drinking coffee.

“They were my friends, and all of a sudden, they weren’t my friends,” Kuehl said.

Later, she came out and ran for the state legislature.

“Every politician would die for the reputation of being courageous and honest and all I needed to do was come out,” she said.

In an election year, how each politician views these issues becomes even more important.

Including sexual orientation along with race and religion in federal hate crime legislation is something Shepard and many others have fought for. But, it is possible their wishes may not come true.

In the upcoming election, the president may have an important say in these things.

“Everything is riding on the presidential election,” Kuehl said.

Though for many who are gay, the clear choice is to pick the democratic candidate. Others thinking about voting for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, might want to think twice, Kuehl said.

“There’s nothing to say in terms of Ralph Nader; he’s never been to one conference that I’ve been to, not one meeting or one march,” Kuehl said. “I feel extremely wary of his sudden pronouncements of support.”

Though the sadness of Shepard’s talk may have fallen on sympathetic ears, she reminded them of why it was so important that even they hear her message.

“Every now and then, even the choir needs to get together to practice,” she said.