"I got some gay homies."

Snoop Dogg, who was asked by The Guardian if Frank Ocean coming out would pave the way for other gay rappers. (His response: “Ocean ain’t no rapper.”) Snoop does, for the record, support same-sex marriage.

Today is the 13th anniversary of the death of Matthew Shepard, the 21-year-old gay college student from Laramie, Wyo., who was brutally beaten into a coma and left to die, propped up on this fence.

Years before the It Gets Better Campaign, the Trevor Project, or anything remotely close to legalized gay marriage, Shepard’s death galvanized the LGBT community—and others—to demand hate-crimes legislation.

Related:

The Matthew Shepard Foundation

Huffington Post: We Are All Matthew Shepard

Newsweek: A Timeline of the Gay Rights Movement

newsweek:

June 6, 1977

Newsweek’s first cover on gay rights, featuring a fiery Anita Bryant, documented how the Florida Citrus Commission spokeswoman (and former Miss Oklahoma) was mobilizing what was described as a “somewhat bizarre but deadly serious battle over gay rights.”

Bryant, of course, would later take a banana cream pie in the face. (“Well at least it’s a fruit pie,” she exclaimed.)

And thirty-four years to the month later, New York would become the sixth and largest state to legalize gay marriage.