In order to justify doing something horrific, people need to believe that what they are doing is actually righteous. So noted The Daily Wire’s Andrew Klavan in his Friday podcast. This is particularly true of the Left — they need to believe in the oppression of women to justify the murder of babies; they need to believe in the oppression of LGBTQ+ people to justify the butchery and debauchery of children. The list goes on and on. They have to tell themselves these stories to justify the horror they are inflicting.

A perfect example of this is the still-grieving mother of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in 1998. Shepard was a 21-year-old college student who was murdered because of an entanglement with a sexual partner due to drug dealing. And yet in an interview with “Today” show cohost Katie Couric, the lie that Shepard was a victim of an anti-gay hate crime was perpetuated by both his mother and Couric, all to underline the LGBTQ+ agenda that wants the world to know that anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes are on the rise.

As our Nate Jackson wrote recently: “Democrats and their army of Leftmedia ‘fact-checkers’ seem incapable of telling the truth about Shepard — or much of anything else, for that matter — because doing so would undermine their agenda. Twenty-five years after the murder and a decade after the narrative was thoroughly debunked by one of their own, they’re still lying.”

Matthew’s mother, Judy Shepard, has been an LGBTQ+ activist since her son’s death because she also needs to believe the lie that her son was a victim of a hate crime. It gave her a sense of purpose after her son’s tragic death, but it also has blinded her to the actual harm she is perpetuating in her son’s name.

Judy was trotted out on “Today” to opine on legislation on the docket in several states that seeks to protect children from gender ideology indoctrination and sexualization. “All those who were fighting against the gay community, this is their last gasp,” she asserted. “They know they’ve lost the war, but this battle is just the last, most vicious attack on the community. … It’s already over. That’s what they don’t understand. They’re fighting a losing battle.”

What she doesn’t understand — as she clings to the lie that her son was a victim of anti-gay hate — is that parents are just as fired up to protect their children from this ideology that is leading many down the path of destruction.

The other purpose for “Today” putting this grieving mother front and center was for Couric to state that, according to FBI statistics, anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes are on the rise. According to Couric, there was an 11% increase in any-gay hate crimes. But if you go to the FBI statistics and plug in the parameters for these different crimes, one thing becomes quickly clear: The majority of these hate crimes are intimidation.

This leads to many other questions such as: What constitutes “intimidation”? How many of these instances were unprovoked? Does the offense automatically count as a hate crime if the victim merely feels intimidated? The answers probably depend on the state and the judge, but we do know that LGBTQ folks are automatically now part of a protected class growing because of intense recruitment, which by definition means there will be more “crimes” against them.

This need to talk about the rise in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes is merely another symptom of leftists’ incessant need to have “victims” to justify their atrocious policies. Ultimately, it degrades actual hate crimes and takes away their significance and meaning.

Matthew Shepard’s mother probably will never stop believing what she feels she needs to about her son’s murder, but it is absolutely malicious that the Left is using her tragedy to lie and promote an agenda that is actively harming our children.