Another day, another tragic shooting. This time at a club that hosts weekend Drag shows.
5 dead after shooting at Colorado Springs LGBTQ club late Saturday night
Five people are dead and 18 others are injured following a shooting at a nightclub in Colorado Springs late Saturday night.
One suspect is in police custody and is being treated for injuries at a local hospital.
The shooting at Club Q, an LGBTQ club in northeast Colorado Springs, is under investigation, according to Lt. Pamela Castro, a spokeswoman with the Colorado Springs Police Department. The FBI is assisting in the investigation, the agency’s Denver office said on Twitter.
Club Q said it was devastated by the attack and called the incident a hate crime in a Facebook post Sunday morning.
“We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack,” the post read.
Updates and live coverage here.
The suspect has been identified and is hospitalized after being subdued by heroic clubgoers.
NBCNews: “At least two heroic people inside the club confronted and fought with the suspect and were able to stop the suspect from continuing to kill and harm others,” Colorado Springs police say
Suspect identified as 22 year old Anderson Lee Aldridge.
I’m sure we’ll learn he was mentally ill and it had nothing to do with guns or the right spewing hatred toward the LGBTQ community.
I’m angry.
satby
Angry and fearful for my friends. And those of us allies just as likely to be targets when we show up to support the LGTBQ+ community. But show up we must.
Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.
TaMara
@satby: I feel the same…add helpless to the mix.
Jerry
Apparently the suspect was also responsible for a bomb threat a year ago
Tinare
I’m so sad and angry at the same time. Their f—ing “freedom” hollow talk when that means freedom to conform their f-ed up view of the world.
UncleEbeneezer
And somehow news articles will make zero effort to mention that the GOP is currently encouraging LGBTQ-phobia/hatred in their messaging and passing actual laws to make LGBTQ kids suffer so that Xtian kids don’t have to feel icky by seeing rainbow flags or using someone’s preferred pronouns/name. Sure, Republicans are openly spraying gasoline on the fires of bigotry, hatred and violence but it would be so uncivil for the media to point that out.
mrmoshpotato
@Tinare: Yup. Their talk about “freedom” is never about everyone’s freedom. Just their own.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jerry: So add “no one could see it coming” it the list of the usual empty platitudes.
john (not mccain)
It’s a shame this never happens at white evangelical churches. They deserve a turn too.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Suppose it’s a good thing they had beaten the asshole into submission. It makes going after trans not near as fun for the next one.
Jackie
@john (not mccain): NOBODY deserves this!
Jerry
Oliver Willis not wasting any time and getting right to the heart:
TERROR GROOMER LAUREN BOEBERT SLAMMED AFTER COLORADO SPRINGS GAY CLUB SHOOTING
WaterGirl
It will be a long fight against hate before we can right this ship we call the united states of america.
The “walk-ins welcome” sign reminded me of the church massacre where the guy came in, they welcomed him to the group, and then he murdered all but one of them, I believe.
These folks were welcoming strangers, and some guy filled with hate walks in to murder a bunch of people he doesn’t know.
WaterGirl
@john (not mccain): Maybe you are new here, so I will let you know that your comment is skating right up to the edge, if not over the edge. Promoting violence, or appearing to promote violence, is one of the few things that is considered unacceptable at Balloon Juice.
Miss Bianca
OMG. This happened in Colorado Springs?
So sad. So furious. No other words.
Mimi
@UncleEbeneezer: As a former “Xtian kid” I don’t think these people understand their bigotry drives rational people away from their churches. Even if I still believed, I wouldn’t want to worship alongside these people.
WaterGirl
@Jerry: It almost feels like the responses are coordinated, which is certainly not a bad thing.
Or maybe a lot of people have separately concluded that we need to call out this kind of disingenuous crap immediately.
Either way, it strikes me as a good thing, and of a piece with other things that are happening.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer: Agree — that should be in the lede of every story. Don’t know if it would make any difference. Two years after a gunman murdered 49 and wounded dozens at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, Florida elected a far-right homophobe as governor. But mainstream Republicans are hell-bent on making society even more dangerous for the LGBTQ community, and that truth should not be ignored in the media coverage of the resulting carnage and tragedies.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
Twitter thread pointing out that it’s eventually about all of us.
The idealized bland 1950s conformity, with white male cishet Protestant Christian social dominance as its keynote, the radical right yearns for was a tool of control as much as anything, and they want it back in their toolkit. Only if everyone else lives in fear can that vicious minority feel safe and secure.
And they’re clearly willing to pave their road with dead bodies to get there, whether those are gay, trans, black, or schoolchildren. (Stay tuned for the next group to be sacrificed for their unholy cause.)
cliosfanboy
@Mimi:
same here. The single biggest challenge to my faith is right-wing Xtians.
Jinchi
Are we having an epidemic of shootings now, or are they just writing about it more in the news?
Jerry
I think it’s this
Poe Larity
I’ll predict Megan McArdlebargle will tweet soon about how the “swarming” strategery she came up with as a Sandy Hook solution works.
Joey Maloney
@john (not mccain): Aside from what WaterGirl said, you have a short memory, sir.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherland_Springs_church_shooting
bbleh
Lone wolf. Mentally disturbed. Was upset by [insert slanted and deliberately inflammatory description of LBGTQ community event]. Thoughts and prayers. But absolutely NO connection to ANY right-wing political or religiostic actions or words, including clearly violent ones, over the past several decades; that would be VERY unfair and uncivil!
HinTN
@Miss Bianca: The Springs is a pretty right wing place.
sab
@cliosfanboy: They don’t share your faith. They only share the labels.
Betty Cracker
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): That’s a great thread. Thanks for sharing it.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Joey Maloney:
It’s frankly horrifying that it’s so goddamn easy to forget about any particular mass shooting.
Note also the harassment of the victims mentioned at the bottom of the Wikipedia article. Fucking awful.
Brachiator
@Jinchi:
The country is full of guns. Some people are full of hate. There is a potential for a slow, continual stream of shootings, exacerbated by hateful messaging from the extreme right.
ETA. There are sites that track this. One claims 700 mass shootings in 2022.
TaMara
@Joey Maloney: Thanks, I was about to go look that up and post.
Daoud bin Daoud
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): I predict the Right will next sacrifice teachers and librarians to their “freedom”.
Dorothy A. Winsor
sab
@Brachiator: My local police are all concerned about an epidemic of angry adolescents with guns (and dead kids as a result) but they still keep voting R.
ETA I hung with a rough crowd in high school in the early 1970s. They had knives.
Montanareddog
@Mimi:
I think they understand very well because the last thing they want in their “churches” are rational people.
The rational are less easy to emotionally-manipulate
Cameron
So Rep. Boebert is going to wait at least a few hours before releasing the whiny fundraising Tweet about how she’s the real victim and how hateful people distort her words and…..well, anybody can fill in the rest.
Miss Bianca
@HinTN: Oh, tell me all about that. I live an hour’s drive away from Springs and am surrounded by the same tighty-whitey Air Force Muscular Christian brigade that rules the roost there.
Ohio Mom
@john (not mccain): You may have stated that inelegantly (you did state that inelegantly) but there is a kernel of truth there.
When I go to my local Jewish community center and have to pass through security to enter (hand over ID, pass through what I assume are bullet-proof plexiglass doors) or when/if I go to synagogue and there is a police officer standing guard in front, and I contrast that with Ohio Son and I strolling into our neighborhood Y, past the desk and into the locker rooms on our way to Son’s swim lesson, no questions asked of us — well, I can’t come up with a parallel of entering a church but I have yet to see a police officer in front of any church on any Sunday morning.
The kernel of truth is that the right wingers’ promotion and celebration of violent gun culture hurts a lot of the rest of us but not them. They face no real consequences and that rankles. But that is true of any group that oppresses another.
Frankensteinbeck
@sab:
Priorities. Republicans allow (encourage!) them to kill whoever they want. That’s more important than whether guns make their job less safe. At least they can shoot anyone, any time they feel unsafe, with no concern about repercussions.
EDIT – @Ohio Mom:
They get killed a lot, too. Especially their children. They don’t give a shit. Priorities.
different-church-lady
As though these things were mutually exclusive.
Quantum man
@Jinchi: The number of mass shootings this year is over 600. Average is about 2 per day. Mass shooting defined as 4 or more persons wounded or killed. See gunviolencearchive.org.
Jinchi
I sincerely hope that wherever Democrats win large majorities, they pass major gun legislation.
sab
@Ohio Mom: That resonates. My first husband was Jewish, and I could never adjust to his perpetual paranoia. Annoying but justified. He saw threats where there weren’t any, but he also saw the real ones I missed.
different-church-lady
@Jerry: “Terror groomer”: now there’s a line of payback that could both stick and be highly effective.
sab
@Frankensteinbeck: In the electoral red wave in Ohio my city passed a charterr amendment for a civilian review board with teeth. Police union totally opposed it. We have been trying to be polite about this for twenty years, but after the slaughter of Jayland Walker with no repercussions we have had enough.
Brachiator
@Ohio Mom:
The unnecessary deaths of people from Covid and the murder of school children and others indicate that the right are very much willing to die in the name of “liberty.”
different-church-lady
@sab: Remember, all this violent crime is the fault of the people who want to take the guns away.
Steeplejack
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That’s a great statement, but I generally dislike politicians sidestepping or avoiding a question and going to a boilerplate statement.
Steeplejack
@sab:
Juvenile delinquents!
RaflW
Benjamin Perry, a minister at a UU congregation, had this to say to Lauren “B is for botulism” Boebert when she condemned (ahem) the mass murder/terrorism. He’s 1000% correct.
RaflW
@Tinare: I’m trying to remember who gave the Democratic victory speech last week that outlined all the ways Democrats are for freedom: Like the freedom from crushing medical debt, the freedom to marry the love of your life, the freedom to be able to afford insulin, the freedom the live without fear of being mowed down by bullets or a car piloted by a maniac (no, I don’t mean Elmo’s autopilot, but the insane laws passed by the GOP for ‘justifiable’ vehicular manslaughter).
Anyway, we need much more of that message in the weeks, months and even years ahead. The freedom to live in a society not drenched in guns is a long difficult way off, but the sooner we start heading there, the better.
JPL
@different-church-lady: Herschel Walker is allowed to buy a gun.
Starfish
@UncleEbeneezer: A lot of the whipped up hysteria about LGBTQ people and CRT proved to be unpopular, and a lot of places did not go for it. Some did, but it seems like a loser position.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@RaflW: We’re bringing back FDR’s “Four Freedoms”
But the other side is pushing FEAR as hard as they can.
We must not let them take the bravery of our finest. We must not give in to fear or to anger. And we must not be silent.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: I wonder if he will do that for a bit, right out of the gate, to send the message that he won’t be baited.
I won’t be at all surprised if he shifts away from that, but having kind of a mantra at first might be smart in that it avoids the possibility of the media tarring him right out of the gate with whatever inelegant thing he might say.
WaterGirl
@RaflW: New rotating tag.
Cameron
Yes, we could definitely use some serious gun-control legislation. Wouldn’t hurt to have a Supreme Court that would approve it, either.
bbleh
@Steeplejack: @WaterGirl: arguably going to boilerplate is implicitly a statement about the Elonny & Donny Show, to wit, “who cares?” And he did respond to the question by saying he had nothing to say about it, and maybe (other than perhaps some snark) he DOESN’T have anything to say about it.
Ksmiami
@Jinchi: I’m sick of this Republican CRIME WAVE.. lock them up
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I am a big fan of Hakeem Jeffries, and one thing I like about him is that he is such a disciplined communicator. One New York journalist compared interviewing Jeffries to “talking with a very handsome robot.”
Mo MacArbie
@bbleh: Hell, he had me at the silent blinking pause. Those blinks clapped like thunder.
Bex
@RaflW: Pete Buttigieg gave a speech like that throughout his campaign.
Sister Golden Bear
I was going to post about today being Transgender Day of Remembrance, were we memorialize trans people killed in hate crimes during the past years — but today the LGBTQ+ communities have more immediate grief.
If you have any LGBTQ+ people in your life, please reach out to them. The worse part of the aftermath of the Pulse massacre was the utter silence from the cis het people around us. I know it can be awkward to know what to say, but that’s why we have stock phrases, e.g. “I’m so sorry,” etc.
JPL
@Geminid: Love that!
Dan B
@Jinchi: At JoeMyGod blog you can read about one or more pastors or priests who are being jailed for rape or pedophilia. Invariably there’s a comment about the number of kids molested at drag shows = zero.
persistentillusion
@HinTN: Parts of the Springs are very conservative. But as someone who has lived here for nearly 30 years, you are painting a metro of nearly 700,000 people with a pretty broad brush. There are many people here who are appalled and questioning why this guy wasn’t locked up after the bombing incident last year. And lots more Ds than you apparently would think.
StringOnAStick
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): Well, that thread was personally eye opening. It made me realize how back when I was a geologist I did lots of things to conform, because as a 5’3″ blonde woman with a pretty deep voice, the latter made me stick out so I kept my hair long to offset the ” make patterned ” clothing necessary to do the job. I just didn’t openly realize I’d been doing that even though a male geologist friend warned me that “some guys find the idea of “turning” a lesbian really sexy”, so I always kept my long hair and even then there were a few times I was verbally assaulted with all the pejorative reserves for gay women. The point was not that I was possibly gay, but that I was not confirming by being in a traditionally male job. This was the mid 1980’s, though I expect the male fantasies by the kinds of guys I encountered in that job are a lot more violent now; I never knew of any females being assaulted or killed doing outdoors traditionally male jobs until after I left that career; then it was several in a very short length of time.
I walked into the only place open in Rangely, CO to get a meal once during an oil boom, it was loud with guys talking as I walked in, dead silence as they all turned to look at me and not a woman in sight anywhere. I turned and left immediately and was afraid I wasn’t going to get back to my hotel before being accosted or worse. The power of group anonymity hit me hard. I had other close calls doing that job but that one sticks out.
JPL
McCarthy is not going to allow Shiff, Swalwell, and Ilhan to sit on committees. Ilhan because of an antisemitic comment. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her Rothchild and Jewish laser beams is fine. Geez most republicans blame George Soros for their loss
It’s okay to hate if you’re a republcan.
Kevin McCarthy
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Jeffries is a great speaker when he’s passionate about an issue. We saw the statement in question live, and it was blah blah blah, but he’s one of those guys who can look good reading a phonebook.
Jess
Of course the perp’s middle name is “Lee.”
Dan B
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): Homophobia and transphobia, and misogyny, etc. are there to keep everyone in line with rigid views of appropriate behavior.
Excellent thread. Thank you!
Betty Cracker
@persistentillusion: Someone on Twitter said the local sheriff in CO Springs is against red flag laws. Sounds like the previous bomb threat might have been a red flag, and a good time to take the murderer’s guns away, if not lock his ass up.
Sister Golden Bear
This. Absolutely this.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jess:
Coulda been “Wayne.”
J R in WV
The christo-fascists are out of control, and run amok when they lose it. I would think a bomb-threat would count for losing the right to possess a firearm, personally, esp after serving a long sentence for the threat, which is surely a felony(?)…
But maybe in Colorado Springs bomb threats are no big deal? Owned and operated by christo-fascists?
J R in WV
@Sister Golden Bear:
My only close relative, a cousin, who was gay came out by the 1970s, I loved her dearly, and she died of ovarian cancer several years ago now. Was 11 months younger than I.
I am so sorry for your community’s loss, I don’t have the words to convey my grief at this repeating tragedy. Take care and be well.
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: I had the same feeling at every action we took in Chicago Gay Liberation, in Tacoma, WA, and especially Louisville. An after hours restaurant whose business was majority LGBTQ they harassed and overcharged the gays. I had my mother sew a skirt for me. The LGBTQ people in Louisville were terrified when I wore it into the offending restaurant. I gave a look to the restaurant owners that I would make a scene and scare off their customers. The harassment stopped. A full beard and a diamond pattern two tone double knit polyester skirt probably contributed to their fear
I had many trans and genderqueer acquaintances in Seattle. We moved from the gay neighborhood fourteen years ago and haven’t seen them since. I’d like to know how they are but don’t have any contact info for them. Sigh.
Tony G
@Jerry: And yet he was free and able to get his hands on a gun. Nice job by the cops.
Tony G
@UncleEbeneezer: Anyone who would do this is obviously f***ed up under any circumstances. However, the normalization of the right-wing (including prominent figures in the Republican Party) of violent anti-LGBTQ rhetoric gives a psychopath like this guy a direction for his violent hatred.
Betty Cracker
@Dan B:
“A full beard and a diamond pattern two tone double knit polyester skirt probably contributed to their fear…”
I love that! Thank you for being courageous. I wish you didn’t have to be!
Tony G
@J R in WV: If that piece of garbage had been black when he pulled the bomb-threat stunt, the cops would probably have killed him then and there. Obviously, the cops are part of the problem
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@UncleEbeneezer:
They never say it because the underlying idea is that right wing violence is always justified. Maybe ‘justified’ is too strong a word, ‘excused’ might be more accurate.
Love"307"
Why is it a horrific tragedy always becomes a political issue?
It should be a time for reflection on all whom were involved.
There’s always Good and bad in life. We just need to out weigh the bad and rise up and become better humans !!
LOVE one another, because we all bleed red!!
Sister Golden Bear
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: For no particular reason I’d like to note that there’s an invite-only, cisgender-only online forum for journalists to discuss covering trans people. A number of reporters who’ve written shitty “just asking questions” stories that disregard actual facts and experts in favor The Narrative are believed to be members.
lowtechcyclist
@Jess:
My Jewish aunt’s middle name was Lee.
Even more mindboggling, her first name was Virginia.
She was born in Los Angeles in the 1920s.
TaMara
@Love: I’m sure you just dropped this comment off and left, so as not to face the backlash. Too bad, you could learn a thing or two from the diverse group that hangs out here.
Sister Golden Bear
@J R in WV: Thank you.
@Dan B: My experiences were never as horrific as yours but I had enough friends gay-bashed/drag bashed during my first years after coming out that I learned to be hyper-vigilant.
My therapist says that almost all LGBTQ+ folks have at least some low-level if CPTSD, and this one reason why.
Tony G
@Jerry: My niece lives in that piece of garbage Boebert’s district. She lives among people who decided that Boebert is just the right person to represent them in Congress.
Tony G
@Tony G: Boebert apparently offered her thoughts and prayers: “This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers.” I’d have a little more respect for someone like Boebert if she’d come right out and say “I’m glad that these people were killed.”. At least there wouldn’t be the phony display of empathy in that case. She’d probably pick up some additional votes from her mouth-breathing constituents if she said that.
Sister Golden Bear
Really good thread about queer bars and the LGBTQ+ communities:
Read the whole thing.
Lobo
@Sister Golden Bear: no choice but to fight to make it safe everywhere, for all LGBT people
We have to fight to make it safe for everyone, everywhere. I am so sorry.
I have your back!
gwangung
@Love: It’s political because it’s ALWAYS political. People who are marginalized and targets of hate and violence know this. It’s a SURVIVAL trait.
It’s obvious you don’t have to spend a lot of time thinking about survival.
Martin
BTW, Musk has been clear and consistent since before he showed interest in buying Twitter that he wants Twitter to be a safe space for groups like Libs of TikTok who targeted this club, and his actions show that he will follow through on that.
I understand the people who think they should remain on Twitter to fight this, but you can’t fight the owner. All you can do is bankrupt him. If you feel like you need to stay on the platform, switch to a 3rd party client, never use the web client, and at least deny him the ad revenue.
scav
@TaMara: Yup. Probably another case of poor punctuation to continue a theme. The scare quotes should have been around the self-announced beatific Love (tots’n’pears are now triplets!). Might be some hinky with the o so pointedly random 307 too.
Martin
@Love: It’s not a horrific tragedy. An earthquake is a horrific tragedy. This is a deliberate act being celebrated by the people who wanted this act to happen. It’s not even a random act. This club was targeted. We know this club was targeted.
Me killing you isn’t a tragedy, it’s a crime. My people killing your people isn’t a tragedy, it’s a war.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
“It will be a long fight against hate before we can right this ship we call the united states of america.”
I’m not sure it can ever be righted and if it can it will be a long time in the future. Hate is an emotion we all have, racism and sexuality is a part of that and will likely never go away completely. I believe we can, over time, lessen the effects and importance of those because they make the world so much worse. And yes it is obvious that we don’t have to be this way, we can change but change only happens because the individual wants to change. Look how hard people work to support nearly half of our political makeup which seems to me to be based upon hate. Look at warfare, which is almost always in response to hate from one direction or another. We as animals use hate to protect us from perceived harm and often can not see that we are so often wrong in using that hate because we almost always over use it and it almost always makes the situation worse. The closets are almost empty of the things/actions we used to hide in them to stop the hate from killing. And they should be out of that closet, because they do not make life worse for those that weren’t in the closet but that is the bullshit that has been sold to so many people. We can not just throw open the closet doors without working on that hate. It is a twofer job, both sides have to be worked on. Or we will all fail.
Juju
@Tony G: Boebert nearly lost her seat in the House of Representatives to a very nice, intelligent, thoughtful, sane person. My guess is she probably feels a bit chastened by the vote and is trying to appear thoughtful and normal until people forget that she nearly lost.
MomSense
I feel so heartbroken and furious at the same time. All of the Republican smears and hate speech directed at the LGBTQ+ community absolutely contributed to this violence. What the hell can we do about it?
I had to run some errands today and noticed that most of the shops on Main Street in my town were flying the Progress Pride flag. Made me tear up.
caphilldcne
@Love: WTF is this troll comment. This is a political issue because LGBTQ people are being targeted by a hate campaign by right wing politicians and media. There is a complete failure to hold these hateful people to accountability. Your comment is disrespectful to that reality.
Subsole
@Miss Bianca:
I am not familiar w/Colorado.
Isn’t that the town full of wackaloon Evangelical Dominionists, courtesy of the local AFB??
Ruckus
@caphilldcne:
Seconded.
Subsole
@Miss Bianca:
I am not familiar w/Colorado.
Isn’t that the town full of wackaloon Evangelical Dominionists, courtesy of the local AFB??
@Mimi: Yep. I will step foot in Church to bury family. Nothing else will get me over the threshold.
caphilldcne
@Martin: thank you.
caphilldcne
@Ruckus: thank you! Always appreciate your comments.
Miss Bianca
@Subsole: Yes, but as another commenter pointed out, also has a fine contingent of freaks, geeks, and other fine folks considered unacceptable by the hard-right–white-Christianist crowd.
It’s actually a really nice city, it’s a shame that the Focus on the Family types have given it a bad name.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@caphilldcne: Given that we just had a discussion of who vs whom, it reads even more trollishly
Subsole
@Miss Bianca: Fair point.
Did not mean to splash anyone with the broad brush.
ArchTeryx
@JPL: I didn’t think he had any authority in that regard. Minority leader picks their own representatives for committees, one of the few powers they do have in the House.
Jackie
@ArchTeryx: Nancy kicked MTG off her Committees after McCarthy refused to do so.
Brad
@john (not mccain): they do idiot there’s been several shooting at white churches in the last 20 years. Ur almost as bad pushing the idea of violence..needs to stop now!!!
@Miss Bianca:
Brad
@Jinchi: very few % are that far right wing..this guy’s a loner and surely not a Christian. Don’t assume..
Ruckus
@Subsole:
Like everywhere else it is populated by human beings.
And human beings are flawed beings, like every other living creature. We just have mouths, arms and hands and all the same emotions that many have not learned how to control. Most all animals will fight back when attacked, even if their concept of attacked is BS. Many of the people who do these attacks has been told over and over that what they see in others has to be destroyed, as otherwise they might be infected with whatever.
lowtechcyclist
@Love:
Probably no use talking to you (this was probably a drive-by post, after all), but I’ll try:
This isn’t a natural disaster. This isn’t “the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.” Or even if you substitute ‘bullets’ for ‘rain.’
This “horrific tragedy” didn’t become a political issue, it originates from the words and actions of one political party that stokes the hate against, and attempts to marginalize and persecute, LGBTQ persons.
The only way for this not to be inherently political, other than that party abandoning its hatred, is for good people to close their eyes and ears and pretend that incidents like these just materialize out of thin air.
The party that is stoking the hatred won’t reflect. And there have been enough incidents like this that we’ve had plenty of opportunity to reflect, and be fully aware that the only suitable response is to stand with our LGBTQ friends and oppose the hatred, not to mention oppose the spread of the weapons of mass slaughter that turn hatred into mass tragedy.
And the way we will outweigh the bad is by action, including political action. Since it’s a political party that’s weaponized this hatred, there’s no way to avoid politics in our response.
I am a born-again Christian. I have known the Lord for fifty-two years. I can and do love my LGBTQ friends. But I am no saint. I cannot love those who would marginalize them, persecute and kill them. I do not hate them, though I hate what they do; that will have to be enough. Even that is far more than I could do on my own.
rikyrah
Hate filled domestic terrorist😠
ArchTeryx
@Jackie: Didn’t that take a full vote of the House to do, though? She couldn’t simply do it by fiat. It took the whole House to censure her and remove her from her committees. McCarthy could have done it within his own caucus and saved himself the public embarrassment but that’s not how Republicans roll.+
She had the votes to do it and did it. McCarthy may well not, because he’d need *every single Republican* present and voting or he’d lose the vote.
IIRC, the Speaker sets the agenda, but can’t simply assemble committees by fiat.
VFX Lurker
Any recommendations for 3rd party clients? Or, could an ad blocker be enough?
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: Well said. Thank you.
My mantra is that politics is how we address and (with effort and good will) solve communial problems. Of course mass shootings have to be addressed with politics.
Cheers,
Scott.
TriassicSands
Actually, i’d call that being willing to die in the name of stupidity. Unfortunately, they can’t tell the difference between liberty and stupidity.
TriassicSands
@Starfish:
Not in Florida.
Martin
@VFX Lurker: I was a loyal Tweetbot user. I never did Twitter from my computer – only from my iPhone/iPad.
TriassicSands
@Subsole:
Years ago, the city decided that one means of economic progress was to encourage (right wing) Christian groups to set up headquarters in Colorado Springs. They were very successful.
In addition, the Air Force Academy has many religious extremists in its midst and has had a number of scandals related to them and their beliefs and practices.
Jackie
@ArchTeryx: Yes, but it wouldn’t have happened if Nancy – as Speaker – hadn’t initiated it. McCarthy should have taken care of it, but he didn’t have the balls.
ColoradoGuy
Kristallnacht in slow motion. It is quite deliberately planned and carried out by *one* party, a party with its own hate-TV channel, hundreds of AM radio stations, and a sophisticated Internet influence operation, using Q-Anon as a recruiting tool.
There is no “both sides” here. This is a group of people with murder on their minds, and well supported by billionaires in this country and abroad.
WaterGirl
@Love – “Good people on both sides!”
VFX Lurker
Thanks. I don’t have Twitter/Facebook installed on my iPad or Android phone. I’ve only been using Twitter from my Windows desktop. I’ll see if I can find something similar to Tweetbot.
Expatchad
People rarely ask me any more why I have moved from Tacoma to Asia.
Subsole
@TriassicSands: Yeah. I had heard the Air Force – or certain elements within it – were, like, hardline Dominionists. We’re talking Curtis LeMay crazy.
I recall reading that they were pretty heavily involved in the Academy located in Colo Springs. Which does not seem ideal.
Was not aware of the makeup of the rest of the town
Edit: gotta ask – where was the economic progress supposed to come from? I’m used to these folks setting up hyperchurches and buying up all the property. Actual contributions to public good? Not so much.
Subsole
@ArchTeryx: They’re Republicans. If they knew, or cared, how stuff works they wouldn’t be Republicans.
He’s gonna try.
@Ruckus: No doubt. I asked mainly because I recalled reading some articles, way back, about a bunch of Dominionists, and I mean full-throttle Seven Mountains nutbars, involved w/the Academy out there. Wondered just how much they ran the actual town.
Subsole
@ColoradoGuy: Yes. The last 12 years have pretty much been us standing here, screaming like Cassandra, waiting for the GOP to talk itself into firing on Ft. Sumter…
Yogi Vance
@WaterGirl: Thank you for this. It’s that kind of blind ignorance that gets stupid people to do stupid things. You called it, that guy should be kicked off your platform.
Yogi Vance
@Sister Golden Bear: Isn’t this what there telling the church goers to do, stay behind there doors and stay out of there view.
The Lodger
@lowtechcyclist: My gay friend from college also has the middle name Lee, and he now lives in Virginia. I hadn’t heard from him in 40 years and was pretty sure he hadn’t survived, until we caught up again on Facebook. So you have company, of sorts.