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When Matthew Shepherd's murder spawned a fresh injustice, America's national gay groups-- vigorous in their organizing, lobbying, and fund-raising around the killing-- suddenly went silent.

In January, the county prosecutor for Laramie, Wyoming, announced he planned to seek the death penalty against Russell Henderson and Aaron McKinney, accused of picking up Shepherd in a Laramie bar last October, tying him to a fence, then beating and leaving him to die. No major gay and lesbian groups condemned the state's intention to execute Shepherd's killers. Yet these gay groups' success in making Shepherd's murder a cause celebre made choosing the death penalty politically expedient for Wyoming officials.

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"The Human Rights Campaign does not have a position on the death penalty," says spokesperson David Smith. "We believe there should be equal application of law and justice, that there should not be a lesser penalty because the person that was murdered was gay." The HRC's position is mirrored by the Lambda Legal Defense Fund. And Rebecca Isaacs, political director of the NGLTF, told a Casper, Wyoming, Star-Tribune that the NGLTF, too, has no position for or against capital punishment.

All these groups say their fundamental concern is human rights. Yet the worldwide consensus among human rights activists is that capital punishment is wrong. "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaims each person's right to protection from deprivation of life," says Amnesty International. Talking about "equitable" application of the death penalty, it contends, is like talking about "equitable" use of torture.

In the wake of the decision to try the Shepherd defendants for capital murder, a collection of less visible gay and lesbian groups have publicly condemned the death penalty, among them a coalition of gay anti-violence projects. "When the state disregards human rights, it is the rights of marginal groups, like gay people, that are most often violated," says Jim Eigo of Queer Watch.

But the large gay political groups, who succeeded in putting the media's spin on the Shepherd murder, have stayed silent. Rumors are the NGLTF's board may decide to oppose the death penalty. But it's late in the game to be proclaiming opposition. Prosecutors now seek the death penalty partly as a sop to gay outrage. Unless gay people proclaim loudly that murder to avenge murder is wrong, the terrible killing of one young man could lead to the terrible killing of two more. **