A Point

And one I've been making for a while, even before the Orlando shooting. From Hank Plante, in the Desert Sun:

Every anti-gay politician, every bigoted preacher, every self-hating bully has blood on his hands. Make no mistake about it, the shooting in Orlando which targeted the LGBT community was the end result of decades of anti-gay hate speech and gay bashings.

Every time a politician or community leader has advocated second-class citizenship for gay Americans, it has given permission to the haters to strike out – in this case in a mass slaughter. . . .

The fact is, gays and lesbians are no strangers to violence. My friend David Mixner, a gay rights pioneer, reminded his Sunday readers on the site Towleroad of the 32 gay bar patrons who died in 1973 when someone fire-bombed the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans. Mixner is right when he says, “Every one of us knows someone who has been gay bashed.”

So imagine the message that anti-gay hate speech sends to someone who is mentally unstable, let alone such a person who has an assault weapon.

Harte makes a point: they don't even get it. They either don't understand or won't admit that they have created this environment.

You'll notice the number of right-wing figures who have been very quick to point the finger at Islam (when they're not blaming Obama -- and some of them manage both), when it's they themselves who have in some cases devoted their careers to creating the environment in which something like Orlando is not only conceivable, but inevitable. (And a special shout out to Wayne LaPierre of the NRA: you have lots of blood on your hands.)

There's history here.

I mean, come on -- this is a no-brainer: remember Mama Grizzly with her map showing certain congressional districts with targets on them? And Gabby Giffords got shot. But it wasn't Palin's fault, no, not at all.

These people really need to be called out, and our ball-less media isn't going to do it.