Matthew Shepard

The Rev. Fred Phelps plans to commemorate the fifth anniversary of Matthew Shepard's murder in his own unique style. The 73-year-old Topeka, Kan., pastor has designed a granite monument engraved with Shepard's face followed by these word chiseled in the stone: "Matthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998, at Age 21 In Defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22."

Viewers benefited when HBO moved up "The Laramie Project" one Saturday so that it wouldn't face a movie on essentially the same topic that NBC had belatedly slotted for March 16 in an apparent attempt to undermine the cable channel's much superior drama. Now, happily, no one has to choose between them.

After taking aim at "The Sopranos" last year, NBC has again irked Home Box Office officials--this time by scheduling a fact-based movie about the 1998 slaying of gay youth Matthew Shepard to run the same night HBO was going to run its own movie related to that topic. HBO announced a few weeks ago that "The Laramie Project," adapted from Moises Kaufman's stage play based on interviews with townspeople about the much-publicized murder, would premiere March 16.

Barbara Isenberg's article on the Tectonic Theater Project's "Laramie Project" ("At the Heart of a Modern Tragedy," July 29) made it rather plain that the ensemble took its own prejudices along to Laramie, Wyo. I lived in Laramie for a few years. I knew many gay people and was friends with several. None of them were persecuted or even looked at crosswise. The gay community thrived. There was no more homophobia in Laramie than elsewhere. And suddenly Laramie became known to everyone because of a hate crime.

The word "honorable" doesn't hold much adjectival currency these days. Even when it isn't used dismissively ("honorable failure," "honorable bore"), it connotes noble aims and good manners, a good-for-you experience without much vitality. But in a smart, bracing way, "The Laramie Project" restores honor to that word "honorable."

Moises Kaufman could not turn off the television. He could not put down the newspaper. Like much of America, he was mesmerized by the news of the horrific beating, robbery and eventual death in 1998 of Matthew Shepard, a gay university student attacked and left for dead by two young men near Laramie, Wyo. "For the five days until he died, you couldn't turn on a television or a radio and not hear about it," says the 37-year-old playwright and director. "Matthew Shepard put a face on hate crimes.

If Wyoming hadn't already seemed another world, it quickly shifted into that sphere on the October day in 1998 with the horrifying news stories about a young gay college student brutally beaten and left tied to a fence outside Laramie. In the five days between the discovery of Matthew Shepard's unconscious body and his death, the place where this homophobic violence occurred came in for a severe thrashing of its own.

There is some irony to the way the filmmakers feel about "If These Walls Could Talk 2." They're glad to have made it. They're pleased with their work. And they sort of hope that in the future proud-to-be-edgy HBO wouldn't greenlight such a project. "We all hope that 10 years from now that having a lesbian 'If These Walls Could Talk' show would be moot," said Jane Anderson, who wrote and directed one of three segments in the 90-minute film. "Having two women kiss will be too mundane."