BLUF:
[PJ] The media quickly sought to blame conservative Christians for the shooting, concluding that the shooter specifically targeted the Pulse nightclub because it was a gay nightclub.
This wasn’t true.
For starters, the shooter wasn’t even Christian; Omar Mateen was Muslim and had pledged allegiance to ISIS.
Nor was the shooting about anti-LGBT hate. As Vox reported in April of 2018, "There’s now conclusive evidence that the shooter wasn’t intending to target LGBTQ people at all."
According to a report from the Huffington Post titled "Everyone Got The Pulse Massacre Story Completely Wrong," also published the same month, "Mateen had never been to Pulse before, whether as a patron or to case the nightclub. Even prosecutors acknowledged in their closing statement that Pulse was not his original target; it was the Disney Springs shopping and entertainment complex."
Despite this, the myth that the attack was a hate crime specifically targeting the LGBT community remains alive and well. There’s even a planned memorial and museum — yes, a museum — dedicated to perpetuating the lie that this was an LGBT hate crime. |