IGF CultureWatch

On Sunday, the NYC LGBT Pride March, dedicated to victims of the Orlando terror attack, prominently featured a banner that declared “Republican Hate Kills.”

As HypeLine reports, “a large group from the LGBT community led part of the parade with a banner reading ‘Republican Hate Kills’ in the wake of the Orlando night club shooting.” The mainstream and LGBT media chose to ignore this in their coverage despite the image being widely circulated on the twitterverse. But it seems Gays Against Guns was the group behind the banner.

[Direct action group Queer Nation, a dominant player on the city’s activist scene, says it was “honored to join Gays Against Guns” in the Pride march, and that “Gilbert Baker supplied the vibrant banners reading ‘Gays Against Guns’ and ‘Republican Hate Kills.’” Baker is credited as the creator of the Rainbow Flag and a member of Queer Nation. Blogger joemygod further describes Baker as “a major force with Queer Nation here in New York City.”]

A few inconvenient truths: the mass murder in Orlando was committed by a radicalized Muslim jihadist who was also a registered Democrat, and who told friends he was supporting Hillary Clinton? No matter, if the big lie serves the narrative, then it’s all good, right?

If I were a gay Republican who showed up to march, I may have just left.

Hillary Clinton marched for a few highly publicized blocks then departed. That’s fine, But the progressives who organize Pride and run the LGBT political movement have made it crystal clear that Republicans are not welcome.

That’s the message being sent to the growing number of younger Republicans and conservatives who are, like their generational cohort, gay friendly. As I’ve often said, the worst nightmare of LGBT progressives is a GOP that ceases to be anti-gay, and they’ll do whatever it takes to stop that from happening.

LGBT progressives’ modus operandi is to go all out to defeat pro-gay and openly gay Republicans, with any lies at their disposal, as they did when San Diego’s Carol DeMaio ran for mayor in 2012, about which James Kirchcik noted:

…a group deceptively named “Conservatives for Gay Rights Supporting Carl DeMaio for Mayor 2012”—paid for “push poll” robocalls in which DeMaio’s homosexuality was put front and center. The group also paid for pamphlets featuring pictures of DeMaio hugging another man and standing alongside a drag queen, stating, “We conservatives know that liberty means that someone can pick a partner of their choice. We commend Carl on his conservative policies and exercising his liberties.”

Not until after the election—ultimately won by former Democratic Congressman Bob Filner, who resigned last August facing multiple accusations of sexual harassment—was it revealed that Democratic supporters of Filner had funded the shadowy group.

During the campaign, DeMaio, then a San Diego city council member, was greeted with boos while marching in the city’s gay pride celebration with his partner—a common occurrence for GOP candidates and officeholders who attend pride events that aren’t organized and hosted by gay Republicans.

And even worse were the now-verified slanders against DeMaio when he ran for Congress in 2014, which a court found “definitely played a role” in DeMaio’s defeat.

Meanwhile, South Carolina has elected its first openly gay legislator, a Republican who says the party in his conservative, southern state is growing more inclusive.

Oh, the pain that this must be causing LGBT progressives.

More. Via Jihadwatch: Islamic State throws four gay men off rooftop, taunts gays with photos of murders bearing #LoveWins hashtag. Gay Pride celebrators ignore the threat of jihadists and blame Republicans. (warning: graphic photo).

Furthermore. An example of inclusive pride. An email I received says, “Join the DC Log Cabin Republicans for our end of Pride Month Social. … We encourage our members and supporters to bring friends to this event—conservative or liberal, Republican or Democrat, gay,straight, transgendered, or bi—because tonight we celebrate LGBT PRIDE and how together we make advancements for our community as a whole.”

Imagine if they had, instead, said “Democrat Hate Kills.”

Parting observation. No, the fact that QN and the march organizers who gave it prominence framed their “Republican Hate Kills” message, if you did some digging into background, as a critique of those who defend Second Amendment rights is a rather thin reed to legitimatize the banner. Despite the pretext, the message came through loud and clear, and it was received as intended.

On the matter of guns, Scott Adams has a pertinent observation on Why Gun Control Can’t Be Solved in the USA:

On average, Democrats (that’s my team) use guns for shooting the innocent. We call that crime. On average, Republicans use guns for sporting purposes and self-defense. … So it seems to me that gun control can’t be solved because Democrats are using guns to kill each other – and want it to stop – whereas Republicans are using guns to defend against Democrats. Psychologically, those are different risk profiles.

Indeed. And check out David Kopel’s The history of LGBT gun-rights litigation, on “the past and present of gay rights activism for the Second Amendment rights of sexual minorities and of all other Americans.”

Also, Pink Pistols besieged with new members.

Obviously, people of good faith can disagree about gun rights, but if you think opposing restrictive gun control is “hate,” then look in the mirror to see the real hater.

Douglas Murray writes, Most Western Gays Remain in Denial about Islam:

Most gay spokespeople continue to think that the political Right is the sole locale from which anti-gay sentiment can come. … But Pat Robertson just wanted to stop gays from marrying. He didn’t call for people to throw us off high buildings. … Despite the growing awareness that this was precisely what the Islamists wanted, gay “spokespeople,” publications, and groups went through the 2000s sharing the old leftish delusions.”

And they still do.

And from Warren J. Blumenfeld, How do we stop Islamic militants’ attacks on LGBT people? Letting go of the delusions of progressive cultural relativism might be a good start.

And then there’s this.

Walter Olson takes down the now-trending meme that the blame for the Orlando massacre falls on the attackers “gay self-loathing,” rather than radical Islamic jihadism:

Then there are the witness accounts, both of survivors at the Pulse scene and of those who knew Mateen before the attack. Survivors describe him as shouting during the attack about US policy toward “his” country (by which he apparently meant Afghanistan, though born in the US) and as declaring his solidarity with the Tsarnaev brothers, of the Boston Marathon massacre. … Note that he did *not* shout out his solidarity with famous conflicted gay persons, nor did he swear allegiance to some quack “ex-gay” therapist. …

[The massacre] is attributable not to the hypothesized “push” of self-loathing due to whatever may have gone on in his sex life, but to the “pull” of a malign and evil ideology. And it is to that ideology we should look for explanations of the Orlando atrocity.

More. Via New York Magazine, The Myth of the Violent, Self-Hating Gay Homophobe:

Internalized homophobia has been linked to depression, loneliness, a sense of helplessness about the future, and increased risk of suicide. Perhaps unsurprisingly, people with high levels of internalized homophobia often have problems sustaining healthy romantic relationships…

Only if you’re steeped in an ideology of fanatic hate do you get a rampaging murderer.

Also, many may be too quick to assume “Grindr use and Pulse attendance as evidence that [the murderer] himself was gay,” the article suggests, alluding to “the possibility that even if he were curious about same-sex behavior or attraction, that wouldn’t necessarily mean he’s gay.”

The Washington Blade thinks Donald Trump represents the greatest threat to LGBT lives and liberties.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton claim laws restricting gun ownership will keep firearms out the hands of murderous jihadis (they don’t, of course, actually believe this). As Glenn Reynolds writes:

Gun control is much stricter in Europe, but that hasn’t stopped mass shootings like the ones at Charlie Hebdo’s offices or at the Bataclan concert hall. (It’s also very strict in California, but that didn’t stop the shootings at San Bernardino.) Talking about gun control is mostly a way of avoiding a tough problem.

The killer was able to could acquire his weaponry because he was a licensed security guard, making the claim that more gun restrictions would “prevent” such crimes all the more grossly disingenuous. But if a few of the patrons had been carrying, and perhaps members of the Pink Pistols, they could have defended themselves (but hey, only the state should be allowed to defend people, right, right).

And this: Virtually all mass shootings happen in “gun-free” zones.

National Public Radio said there are conflicting reports over whether the shooter was motivated by loyalty to Islamic State (as the police report) or hatred of gays (as his father states), as if the two didn’t go together.

The Log Cabin Republicans get to the point:

“It’s no secret that abroad men who are gay — and merely suspected of being gay — are targeted for execution; today, that threat has reached the United States. … If the shooter’s suspected motivations are indeed confirmed, we call upon President Obama and the presumptive nominees of both parties to condemn the attacker and acknowledge in no uncertain terms the cause of this massacre: Radical Islamic terrorism.”

More. James Taranto in the Wall Street Journal:

But the point is, the Islamic terrorist who carried out the deadliest attack in America since 9/11 chose as his target a sexual minority. Such an atrocity posed a test for those on the multicultural left: Would they see clearly the threat of Islamic terrorism when it targeted a minority whose interests they vigorously champion against far lesser threats?

For the most part the answer was no. [Slate’s Mark Stern] turned his rhetorical fire on the near enemy, in a piece titled “Republicans Are Erasing LGBTQ People From Their Own Tragedy.” He specifically faulted Marco Rubio and Mike Huckabee for tweeting sympathy for the victims without noting that most of them were gay (or, as Stern again put it, “LBGTQ people”).

Stern ignored Donald Trump, who in a statement put the matter straightforwardly: “Radical Islam advocates hate for women, gays, Jews, Christians and all Americans. I am going to be a President for all Americans, and I am going to protect and defend all Americans.” He also ignored Ted Cruz, who, according to Politico, “called on Democrats as ‘loud champions of the gay and lesbian community’ to denounce ‘an ideology that calls for the murder of gays and lesbians.’ ”

Furthermore. ACLU Blames—Wait for It—’Conservative Christians’ for Orlando.