The man, who had expressed anti-gay views, was sentenced to 10 years in jail for arson. Club goers reported the smoke and it was doused in time. 31, 2013, by an American of Libyan descent who poured gasoline in a stairway and set it alight. Potok also notes a precedent for Sunday’s mass killing: A failed arson attack on a gay club in Seattle on Dec. He points to anti-gay propaganda by some religious-right groups as one root of the hatred. Still, on a per capita basis LGBT individuals are four times more likely than Muslims to be the victim of hate crimes, says Mr. In absolute numbers, the trend for anti-gay violence has been flat for the past decade, based on the FBI’s tally. Of these, 18.6 percent were motivated by sexual orientation, equal to the number attributed to religious hatred race was the largest determinant with 47 percent of the reported crimes. The FBI reported 5,462 “single-bias” hate crimes committed in 2014. The gunman told police that he was angry that he had been teased about his surname. In 2000, a gunman named Ronald Gay shot dead one person and injured six others at a gay bar in Roanoke, Va. In 1973, 32 people died in a bar in New Orleans after an arson attack.
While Sunday’s nightclub massacre was the worst mass shooting in US history, it wasn’t the first incident of indiscriminate anti-gay violence.
Garcia, who had draped a Mexican flag with rainbow stripes – the colors of gay pride – around her body. “Yeah, there’s been so much progress, but we’re still getting stepped on,” says Ms. “We had to celebrate for the people who lost lives,” adds Michelle Ventura. “I think made us more anxious to show up. “We’re here to celebrate, but we’re never safe,” says Evelyn Garcia, a college student. “Today’s march was about pride, but it was also an act of protest against fear, bigotry, and violence, so that’s how the whole community is responding.”Īlong Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, a group of young students attending Sunday’s march reflected on the tragedy that hung in the air. “We cannot allow this kind of violence to silence us,” says Lorrie Jean, who runs the Los Angeles LGBT Center and spoke at the end of the march. Police were a very visible presence in the march, and many participants wore black armbands to mourn those slain in Orlando. The Orlando shootings put the weight of this challenge front and center Sunday in Los Angeles at the city’s annual gay pride parade. But they are still subjected to intense hatred by a large minority of people,” says Mark Potok, an expert on hate groups at the Southern Poverty Law Center.Ĭolumbine. They’re clearly being accepted by a wide swath of society in ways they weren’t before. “The reality is that LGBT people have made huge advances in last couple of decades. That tolerance has indeed been rising, but the currents of opposition and even violence haven't yet faded out. Mateen, a US-born Muslim of Afghan heritage, remain unclear he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a 911 call and had previously been investigated for links to Islamic extremism.īut the targeting of gay revelers gathered at a club to celebrate is a blow not just to the LGBT community but to a majority of Americans who have begun to see tolerance as the new national norm, even in a polarized political climate. This climate of vitriol reached a new low on Sunday when Omar Mateen murdered 49 people celebrating gay pride month at a nightclub in Orlando, Fla. Yet over the same period, the same community of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people has reported a steady drumbeat in hate speech and violence directed against them. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of such unions.
In 2012, President Obama said he supported same-sex marriages. For more than a decade, mainstream America has begun to accept and embrace its gay minority at a pace that took many in the community by surprise.