After Shooting, Hate-mongering Republicans Are Suddenly Silent About LGBTQ Issues

The shooting suspect is being held for possible hate crimes—but you won’t hear these politicians mentioning it.

David Zalubowski/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The man suspected of killing five people at a gay nightclub in Colorado Springs on Saturday night faces preliminary charges of murder and hate crimes, suggesting that officials believe he may have targeted victims based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

“It’s important to let the community know that we do not tolerate bias-motivated crimes in this community, that we support communities that have been maligned, harassed, and intimidated and abused,” El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen said at a press conference Monday. “If there’s enough evidence to support that in this case, when we get to the formal filing charges, we will absolutely be including those charges here.”

Some lawmakers, like Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is openly gay, were quick to recognize how the shooting felt like an attack on the LGBTQ community. “Colorado stands with our LGTBQ community and everyone impacted by this tragedy as we mourn together,” Polis, who is currently recovering from Covid, said in a statement.

Here’s Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), whose district includes Denver:

But a number of Republican politicians, including those have stoked a moral panic about “grooming,” have stuck to broad generalizations, making it appear that they’re conveniently avoiding the topic of gender identity. To be fair, these reactions were posted before information about the motivations of the shooter had come to light; there’s still a lot we don’t know. But either way, social media users were quick to point out that these Republicans’ omissions couldn’t obscure their histories of stirring up hatred against the LGBTQ community.

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), who represents Colorado Springs in Congress, opposes same-sex marriage and repeatedly sought to defund PBS because of its portrayals of LGBTQ individuals in series like Prideland. After the shooting, Lamborn issued a generic response urging people to “pray for the victims and their families.”

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), whose district encompasses land to the west and south of the Springs, has frequently spewed anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, from calling the Equality Act “supremacy of gays” to denigrating the discussion of sexuality and gender identity with kids as “grooming.” “This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly,” she wrote, without specifying how one might bring gun violence to an end, or acknowledging how anti-LGBTQ rhetoric can galvanize far-right extremists into attacking gay and trans communities.

Perhaps the most offensive response came from outside the state. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has made myriad gestures against the LGBTQ community, from backing an anti-trans bathroom bill to calling trans women “men playing dress-up” to claiming that straight people face extinction. Yesterday, she took to her once-banned Twitter account—recently restored by Elon Musk—to exercise a truly astounding feat of whataboutism:

Where to begin? The recreational use of fentanyl, unlike assault weapons, is already illegal. Plus, President Biden has taken steps to limit fentanyl poisoning, including allocating funding for harm reduction programs to allow drug users to access fentanyl test strips. And while drug overdoses are a tragedy, they don’t appear to have much of a connection to the weekend’s violence. Like much of what Greene says, the logic here doesn’t add up.

It seems like these Republicans are truly taking the “Don’t Say Gay” edict to heart.

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate