This article focuses on the murder of Matthew Shepard. Matthew Shepard was gay. Tied to the fence as we was, the sheriff allowed that it did look a bit like a crucifixion. With little more than that, a consensus quickly emerged that Matthew Shepard was a martyr; an innocent victim of a hate-driven bashing because of his sexual orientation. Counsel for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, Sean Maloney, would later say, "Matthew Shepard is to gay rights what Emmett Till was to the civil rights movement." The killing of Shepard built momentum for passage of a law that would make assaults based on sexual orientation a crime. President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard Act into law in 2009.