the wake of a judy amatthew' father established a find dags and in 2009 what would become the matthew shepardate crimes prevention act. it's an honor to speak with you tonight. thank you so much for joining us. your son matthew was killed 24 years ago. it was a murder motivated by anti-gay hate. now we still don't know exact the motive for the colorado shooting. what went through your mind when you heard about this happening at club q? >> well, first i want to take this opportunity to convey my condolences to the families affected by club q. i know what they're going through. there will be scars seen and unseen forever for them. and i really feel for them. this is another tragedy, senseless on all sorts of levels. of course, your mind goes to the incident at pulse in 2016, and even what happened to matt and the many hate crimes committed against the gay community before and after matt. >> has he mentioned the 2009 hate crimes act was named in part after your son. and there has been progress since then in some ways. some progress, but, but. >> yeah, but. >> you do have the sense that something

and quite frankly, folks are forgetting about paul's, about matthew shepard, and we can't let that stop our schools, they wanted not teach about matthew shepard and his murder were teach about what happened at pusle. they want to put people in the shadows, make folks hide and ignore what truly happened to lgbtq people across the country. we are being targeted, attacked. all we want to do is live our lives as freely and openly as everyone else. i am proud to serve as an lgbtq elected official but i have to tell you, when we are not at the table, the rhetoric, the hate rises to the top. the hate every single day by our colleagues and members is infuriating. you can imagine what our youngest people are going through. young people celebrating who they are. there performing in drag. their beautiful, glorious. right now they are being attacked and their parents are being attacked simply for living their lives. it is wrong. amy: i want to talk more about drag queen events that have faced online hate and protest, including one planned at denver botanic garden in june during pride month that was