A cynic might suppose that Falwell's newfound emphasis on Christian love for gays stems from a need to appear moderate in moderate times. Faced with George W. Bush's "compassionate conservatism," the religious right is on the defensive; its preoccupation with the sin of gayness seems increasingly extreme to ordinary people. This too is Matthew Shepard's legacy: in death, he served as vivid proof of the suffering that scars gay life in America. In this new climate, any evangelical might do well to lie low and preach tolerance. One good sign for Falwell: the Rev. Fred Phelps, the viciously homophobic Kansas preacher who picketed Shepard's funeral, stood outside the Lynchburg meeting with a small band carrying signs that read, "Jerry and a Fairy Equal Sin." Phelps' protest of Falwell's meeting only improves his new-found image as a centrist. With such enemies, who needs friends?

But criticizing is easy: admitting you've been wrong, as Falwell did, takes guts. Mild and incomplete as his words were, they took real courage--many evangelicals, even more inflexible, howled that Falwell was letting them down. More importantly, those words will have real force. For the religious right, Falwell is an elder statesman: he is a famous Christian radio personality, the chancellor of Liberty University and one of the most powerful ministers in the country. As one gay-rights advocate told the Lynchburg News and Advance, "If Jerry Falwell says it, parents will think it's the right thing to do."

Back in Laramie, arguments began in Aaron McKinney's murder trial this week. McKinney's lawyers chose the familiar "homosexual panic" defense, portraying Shepard as a sexual predator who licked McKinney's ear and touched his genitals. Enraged and frightened, his lawyers said, McKinney responded with brutal violence, beating the slender college student over and over with the butt of a gun. In at a summit in Lynchburg, Jerry Falwell vowed to help keep such violence from ever occurring again. For Matthew Shepard, the minister's promise comes too late. But that promise--contradictory, halting, uncertain, well-intentioned and human--may someday help make life less terrifying for gays and lesbians in this vast country.

Adam A. Sofen '01, a Crimson editor, is a history and literature concentrator in Pforzheimer House.