Right-Wing Media Responds to Colorado Springs Shooting by Doubling Down on Anti-LGBTQ Hate
After a deadly shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, right-wing pundits are lashing out at the left.
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In the aftermath of the hate-fueled shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub that left five people dead and at least 25 injured, many right-wing pundits are grotesquely doubling down on the kind of rhetoric that helped lead to such violence in the first place.
Figures like Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, and Ben Shapiro apparently didn’t have time to denounce the shooter or the hate crime. Instead, they focused on what they see as the real violence: some imagined progressive agenda to violate children. That actual people died, and why they did, was of less interest to them.
Leftists are using a mass shooting to try and blackmail us into accepting the castration and sexualization of children. These people are just beyond evil. I have never felt more motivated to oppose everything they stand for, with every fiber of my being. Despicable scumbags.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) November 21, 2022
I just want to make sure I’m correct in understanding that the Left is using the tragedy in Colorado to make the argument that unless conservatives get on board with experimenting on children’s genitals with puberty blockers, then nightclub shootings will continue to happen.
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) November 20, 2022
The quest by the Democratic leadership and media to link a horrifically evil shooting at a Colorado gay club to anyone who doesn't support a progressive social agenda is ongoing and terrible for the country. It's a cynical game only one side plays, and it's trash.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) November 21, 2022
These posts not only show little actual concern for those harmed in the shooting, but they also come from individuals who have been on the forefront of fomenting brain-melting, blood-pressure-rising conspiracy about LGBTQ people.
Just last week, Shapiro warned that any Republican who voted to codify same-sex marriage “should not be in the Republican party.”
Walsh, alongside reactionary Twitter account ‘Libs of Tiktok’ (run by Chaya Raichik), was a leading voice claiming that bomb threats against Boston Children’s Hospital were hoaxes—until a woman was arrested and charged in September for making one of these threats. Walsh and Raichik have spread conspiracies about, and incited harassment towards, hospitals like Boston Children’s Hospital that provide gender-affirming care. Boston’s Children Hospital has faced numerous threats since then.
Even after the shooting, Libs of TikTok posted a tweet Sunday singling out a Colorado drag organization.
Walsh, Owens, Shapiro, and company dismiss those who rightly identify them as contributors to violent discontent, calling them pawns of the Democratic agenda, or the liberal media, or leftists, or some other amorphous bucket to slander. The shtick works to a point, but there are more than enough people—politically-engaged or not, LGBTQ or not—who plainly see how monstrous it is to demonize people for simply wanting to be who they are and love who they love.