he brutal murder of Matt Shepard was bad enough. Its exploitation by gay-rights groups is only making matters worse.

Shepard, as most readers probably know, is the gay University of Wyoming student who was kidnapped, robbed, pistol-whipped and left tied to a fence. The two alleged culprits are said, by those who know them, to hate not just gays but lots of other people — especially cops. They appear to have victimized straights too. Just hours after tying Shepard to the fence, they allegedly assaulted two teens, hitting one in the head with a gun butt.

In light of this evidence, common sense may tell you that Shepard’s murder is the work of a couple of vicious sociopaths. But in the world of liberalism — where crime is said to be less the fault of criminals than of “society” — it’s never that simple. And so it is that homosexual groups are laying the blame at the feet of … Christians.

Kim Mills of the Human Rights Campaign linked the violence to “a climate of intolerance ... fostered by religious political organizations such as the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition.” In similar words, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) claimed that “right wing groups have fostered a climate conducive to such violence.”

Neither produced any evidence that any of the organizations named has ever advocated violence. The reason is that it’s never happened. In fact, these accusations come at a time when major Christian groups have increasingly expressed their concern for people caught up in homosexuality.

In the past few months many of them have co-sponsored the Truth in Love campaign, a series of high-profile ads featuring ex-gays who’ve come out of their former lifestyle — not only through therapy but through the power of God.

There’s not a trace of hostility in the ads. (Don’t take my word; check them out for yourself.) While arguing that homosexuality is wrong, their tone is unfailingly compassionate, loving and hopeful. They portray homosexuals not as enemies but as wounded brothers and sisters in need of healing.

This hasn’t stopped gay activists from trying to smear the campaign, however. An NGLTF press release names the ads as part of that “climate conducive to ... violence,” and says “right wing organizations have hypocritically portrayed their efforts as ‘compassionate and loving’” (again providing no evidence for either statement). Mills claims that to say “there’s something wrong with being gay and that you can and should change your sexual orientation,” leads people to “hear these messages and say, ‘I am going to go out and beat up a fag because they are bad.’”

What’s behind this reaction by gay activists? Two things, I think.

The first is that gay activists are so caught up in a homosexual lifestyle that they cannot interpret criticism as anything other than a personal assault to be fought off. They simply refuse to hear it. This reaction is symptomatic of people — by no means just homosexuals — who sense, deep down, that what they’re doing is wrong.

The second factor is that accusing their opponents of hate is the most effective tool gay activists have. They’ve tried to convince the public that homosexuality is okay, but according to polls, they haven’t succeeded. Despite decades of efforts to legitimize homosexuality, substantial majorities of Americans (around 60 percent) still believe homosexuality is “always wrong.”

If they can’t legitimize their lifestyle, they can capitalize on public sympathy for underdogs. That’s what “hate crimes” laws are all about. They’re clearly not needed to prevent crimes — murder, assault, et al are already felonies in all 50 states. The laws are designed to publicize crimes, so that all opponents of homosexuality can be accused of giving aid and comfort to criminals. In short, the goal is to silence criticism altogether.

As I say, all this rests on making the “hate” charge stick to Christians. By and large it’s a bum rap. When there’s a real crime against gays, you’re not likely to find the culprits are Campus Crusade for Christ members on a rampage. They’re more likely to be street thugs who spend Sunday morning sleeping off their hangovers. For that matter, as even the liberal Washington Post has noted, “many of the crimes that concern anti-violence activists are in fact gay-on-gay crimes” — e.g., “‘pickup murders,’ so called because they are committed by troubled men who pick up strangers in bars, go home with them for sex, and then rob and kill them.”

None of this is to deny that some self-declared Christians really do hate homosexuals. The most repellent example, the Rev. Fred Phelps, is known for carrying around signs that say “God hates fags.” As I write (Oct. 14), Phelps says he plans to picket Shepard’s funeral.

But among the Christians I know — and between church and work at Focus on the Family, I know a lot — such tactics are universally viewed with disgust, and people like Phelps are deplored. As a dismayed co-worker of mine pointed out, there’s a line from Romans 2:24 that speaks to Phelps’ conduct: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”

What I mostly see is Christians maintaining the scriptural attitude: Hate the sin, love the sinner.

The only way to love the sinner, however, is to tell the truth about homosexuality. The truth is that the gay lifestyle is a destructive one, as seen in countless ways — from AIDS to promiscuity to the drug and alcohol abuse that is rampant in the gay community (see “Not Afraid to Come Out”). Moreover, Christians must take Scripture seriously; they cannot brush aside the biblical warnings that unrepented homosexuality is among the sins which will prevent people from entering the kingdom of heaven (I Corinthians 6:9-10).