Just what is it they are afraid of? The question occurs to me whenever I hear of assaults on homosexual men and women. It occurred to me last month when some young Wyomingites, apparently motivated by anti-gay bias, beat Matthew Shepard to death.

And it occurs to me now that Matthew "Alex" McLendon has been driven out of his Carrollton, Ga., high school for dressing -- and apparently for being -- like a girl.

You know the sad case of Shepard, the 21-year-old University of Wyoming student, who was lured from a local bar, pistol whipped and left tied to a fence outside Laramie. He died without ever regaining consciousness.