Laramie passes anti-discrimination measure 17 years after the death of Matthew Shepard

Seventeen years after the death of Matthew Shepard put Laramie, Wyoming, in the national spotlight, the city council passed an ordinance that prohibits housing and employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The measure passed with a vote of 7-2 on Wednesday. Local organizers said they presented a draft ordinance to the city council last summer after the state legislature rejected anti-discrimination bills. "My opinion is that LGBT people should have civil rights throughout the nation, really," Will Welch of the Laramie Nondiscrimination Task Force told The Associated Press. "So since the state wasn't looking like it was able to do anything, I said, 'Let's do it in Laramie.'"

It's welcome news for Judy Shepard, whose son Matthew, a gay college student, was murdered in Laramie in 1998. "I'm thrilled that Laramie's doing it, at the same time sort of saddened that the state of Wyoming can't see fit to do that as well," she told AP. "Maybe the rest of Wyoming will understand this is about fellow human beings and not something that's other than what they are."

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