Laramie Inside Out

Streaming video - 2015

In October 1998, Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and left to die. The horror of this murder pushed Laramie into the media spotlight and sparked a nationwide debate about homophobia, gay-bashing and hate crimes. Filmmaker Beverly Seckinger, who grew up in Laramie, was compelled to return to her hometown to see how this event had altered the site of her own closeted adolescence. Along the way she meets "God-hates-fags" Westboro Baptist Church Reverend Fred Phelps, who condemns Shepard and all LGBTQ people to a merciless eternity in hell. But Seckinger meets many more--students, teachers, parents, and clergy--wrestling with painful complexities, speaking out and taking action.