The Government of the Student Body voted Wednesday night to give funding for a candlelight vigil held in memory of Matthew Shepard south of the Campanile Thursday night.

Shepard, 21, an openly gay University of Wyoming student, died Monday after being savagely beaten and tied to a fence in near-freezing temperatures before being found almost 18 hours later.

Emergency legislation written by Mike Pogge, LAS, was introduced at the senate’s Wednesday night meeting at the Memorial Union.

The bill asked for $115.88 from GSB to be given to the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender and Ally Alliance (LGBTAA) to purchase candles for the vigil.

GSB President Bryan Burkhardt said he was very much in favor of the bill and the candlelight vigil.

“I want to stress how important this is to our campus,” Burkhardt said. “I fear that this type of incident could occur on any campus, and we need unified support to ensure that this doesn’t happen at ISU.”

Pogge also stressed the need to prevent such incidents from occurring.

“Nobody would ever think this would happen at ISU, but you never know what may happen,” he said. “This candlelight vigil is not so much for Matthew, but more to ease the fears of those who live in fear and to promote education and nonviolence of persons of LGBT background.”

The bill passed almost unanimously but did face some opposition.

Steve Erickson, off-campus, voted against the bill.

“There’s a lot of people on campus who would have serious objections to their student money being used to promote the homosexual agenda,” he said.

Erickson said he feels there is a cultural war.

“There were no resolutions when kids were killed in crossfire in drug wars, and there are no resolutions for children who are killed when schoolmates steal weapons and open fire on them. There are no resolutions about that,” Erickson said.

Erickson viewed the bill as a way to encourage students to become part of the LGBT community.

“Granted you shouldn’t kill or rob people, but the fact that they were only putting the resolution forward because he was gay is nothing but promoting agenda,” he said. “They just want the student population and the population at large to sanction their lifestyle.”

Erickson said it all depends on the definition of a hate crime.

“Who defines what a hate crime is?” he said. “For example, Colin Ferguson got on a Long Island train and started killing people. Later, police found a diary where he said that whites, Asians and ‘Uncle Tom’ blacks must die, and that was not defined as a hate crime.”

Pogge said the bill was not a resolution, but rather a simple request for funding.

“All this bill was was an allocation to LGBTA Alliance, so they, along with LGBTSS [Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Student Services], Ames P-Flag and other organizations could come to the Campanile and have a candlelight vigil to increase awareness that these things do happen.

“This is more just to say, ‘Hey, we are all people, and we need to get along.’ You might not agree with what I do, or who I am, but you don’t have to beat the shit out of me to prove your point,” Pogge said.