Apr 11, 2008  |  By: KATHERINE VOLIN  | COMMENTS     

Judy Shepard is a well-known activist with a national reputation. The Wyoming mother has been a public advocate for hate crimes legislation since her gay son Matthew Shepard was brutally killed in Laramie, Wyo., 10 years ago. She’s lobbied Congress, started the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and speaks around the country about Matthew’s life and death.

Few people, however, have heard of Logan Shepard, Judy’s other son and Matthew’s younger brother who was a teenager when his brother died. Over the past year, Logan has slowly begun to step into the public eye, starting with a web and office assistant position at the foundation last June. Now he’s launched a blog for the foundation’s new youth-oriented web site, Matthew’s Place.

It’s no accident that he stayed out of the public eye for so long.

“I never felt any pressure. My mom and dad left the situation completely up to me and so eventually I told them I would end up working for the foundation. They always asked me if I wanted to do things and be a part of it before they did anything,” says Logan, 27, who speaks softly and succinctly. Twice a year he would accompany his mother on her speaking engagements, but he was also occupied with school. He started pursuing a degree in criminal justice from the University of Wyoming but hasn’t finished.

Although his choice of major might appear connected to Matthew’s death, Logan says that it wasn’t; criminal justice was always a field that interested him. What to do with the degree puzzled him, however.

“I think that’s why I never finished. I started doing it, and then started to rethink why I wanted to do it,” he says about a criminal justice degree. “I’ve been waiting to see if I want to go back and choose another path.”

FOR THE PAST few years, he’s been bartending in Denver, Colo., where a branch of the foundation is based. He started writing his blog, called Logan’s Voice, in February as a way to express his point of view not only as Matthew’s brother, but also as a straight man who considers himself part of the gay community.

“I really wanted to help straight allies and siblings and parents try to learn more through our situation and also to reach the younger generation — my age group and younger. I felt that they weren’t really being targeted,” he says.

He approaches his blog entries from his own perspectives and experiences on equality and discrimination. This is from his first post, dated Feb. 25:

“Once work is done, I go outside and life is back to normal, I’m a Caucasian, straight, male. Whereas my co-workers and many other people around the U.S. go outside and have to go back out and deal with ignorance and hate-filled people. Never knowing where a hateful comment may or may not come from, whether it is on the street, at a convenience store or even in their apartment complex.”

Thomas Howard, Jr., programs director for the Matthew Shepard Foundation, works with Logan and says that one of his greatest strengths is his honesty.

“He’s very straightforward,” Howard says. “What you see is what you get, and he’s not going to not say something for the fear that it’s going to upset someone. He’s going to tell you like it is, and that’s a very valuable trait.”

The four-person Denver office makes for a close-knit experience with gay people that Logan uses for blog fodder, often clarifying gay cultural and social norms for straight readers.

“I definitely view things differently. I’m the only straight person in the office and sometimes the language gets lost [on me],” Logan says about terms and acronyms like GLBT, GLAAD and HRC. “[Gay] people are around it so much, that they don’t understand. I didn’t get a lot of the language, a lot of the organizations’ [names]. I think I can help a lot with the other straight allies, help them with the language and break down what’s going on.”

Matthew’s Place was launched last October as a way to reach out to youth interested in gay rights issues. The idea behind it is to engage all youth, regardless of sexual orientation.

“There doesn’t need to be this separation … these are the issues that all of us face every day,” Howard says about the idea behind Matthew’s Place and Logan’s role in it. Beyond providing a straight voice, Logan’s perspective as an onlooker to the foundation’s work is unique.

“It’s not just who his brother was, it is the fact that Logan ...