Right Wing Uses Colo. Tragedy to Vilify Gays, Secularism

Bryan Fischer

Sad but not surprising: Whenever there’s a tragedy, someone uses it to demonize gay people, and it’s happened with the mass shooting at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater.

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association is apparently the first to play the gay card this time. Reacting to news that the Aurora Chick-fil-A was providing free food to police and other emergency personnel on the scene, Fischer tweeted, “Chick-fil-A provides free meals to first responders in CO. Let’s see Big Gay demonize that,” The New Civil Rights Movement reports.

The fast-food chain under fire for donations to antigay groups, and Fischer’s tweet linked to a Breitbart.com story that quoted some Twitter messages critical of Chick-fil-A, such as “$3M to fight marriage equality, but it’s ok cuz they gave cops some chicken tenders and waffle fries?”

Meanwhile, Fischer and other religious conservatives are saying the crime was a result of America’s turning away from traditional Judeo-Christian values. Fischer, in a column posted on the AFA website today, refers to “the catastrophic consequences in American life since the Supreme Court kicked God out of our public school system in 1962 by prohibiting school prayer.”

Without mentioning LGBT people specifically, Fischer cites these phenomena as among the consequences: “The nuclear family is breaking apart at culture-destroying rates. One of out every five adults in America has a lifelong, incurable sexually transmitted disease.”

Also blaming the tragedy on “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” was Texas congressman Louie Gohmert, who appeared on a Heritage Foundation radio show hosted by former congressman Ernest Istook of Oklahoma. “We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country,” Gohmert said.

Gohmert and Istook also wondered why no one in the theater was armed and therefore able to take down the shooter; Colorado allows citizens to carry concealed weapons. “It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?” Gohmert asked. Read more and listen to the interview here.