LARAMIE, Wyo. - Politicians, including President Clinton,
                 joined activists Saturday in urging tougher hate-crime laws
                 following a vicious beating that left a gay college student near
                 death.

                 Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old University of Wyoming student,
                 was found beaten and tied to a wooden fence last week. He was
                 in critical condition Saturday at a Fort Collins, Colo., hospital
                 where about 500 people gathered after sundown for a candlelight
                 vigil.

                 Hospital officials said welt marks on Shepard's body were earlier
                 mistakenly identified as burn injuries.

                 "This heinous crime deserves the condemnation of all
                 Americans," House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo.,
                 said of the attack.

                 The alleged assailants, Russell Arthur Henderson, 21, and
                 Aaron James McKinney, 22, were charged Friday with
                 attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated
                 robbery. Chastity Vera Pasley, 20, was charged with being an
                 accessory to the crime.

                 Kristen Leann Price, 18, was arrested for investigation of being
                 an accessory but had not been charged.

                 Police and hospital officials on Saturday said that McKinney was
                 hospitalized with a fractured skull about the same time as
                 Shepard. Laramie Police Detective Ben Fritzen said the injury
                 was unrelated to the attack, but would not elaborate. Police
                 arrested McKinney at the hospital.

                 Police said the two men lured Shepard from a campus bar late
                 Tuesday or early Wednesday by telling him they were gay.

                 The three allegedly drove off in McKinney's truck, where
                 Shepard was beaten. Later, the assailants tied him to the fence
                 and beat him some more, police said. The victim also was
                 pistol-whipped.

                 Authorities said the two men made anti-gay remarks to the two
                 women.

                 Gay-rights activists said the attack shows the need for tougher
                 hate-crime legislation, and reveals a growing national level of
                 intolerence.

                 "There is a climate right now of intolerance that we believe is
                 being fostered by religious political organizations such as the
                 Family Research Council, Focus on the Family and the Christian
                 Coalition," said Kim I. Mills of the Human Rights Campaign,
                 the largest national gay and lesbian political group.

                 She said the groups began an advertising campaign Thursday
                 "with a message that basically says there's something wrong
                 with being gay and that you should and can change your sexual
                 orientation," she said.

                 "They hear these messages and say, 'I am going to go out and
                 beat up a fag because they are bad."'

                 President Clinton called the attack "horrifying." He and
                 Gephardt likened the beating to last summer's racial killing of
                 James Byrd in Texas, and urged Congress to pass pending
                 hate-crimes legislation.

                 The Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group in
                 Washington that has lobbied Congress to reject gay-rights
                 legislation, also condemned the attack.

                 "Violently attacking a person is unconscionable, whatever the
                 reason," said Robert H. Knight, the group's director of cultural
                 studies.

                 But Knight said some gay rights activists are exploiting the
                 attack to promote hate-crime legislation.

                 "Every crime is a 'hate' crime," Knight said. "Brutalizing a
                 person is a reprehensible act, regardless of the motivation or the
                 group affiliation of the victim."

                 By The Associated Press