Colorado Springs shooting could happen anywhere, including here

Dave Rogers

The more I hear about the recent Colorado Springs nightclub shooting, the more outraged I become.

For those who do not think LGBTQ+ discrimination and hatred is a problem nationwide, I hope this changes the conversation. As of today, the man arrested for killing five people and wounding as many as 18 others is being charged with a hate crime, giving credence that he was targeting those in the queer community.

As a recent letter writer pointed out, the mass shooting was not the first time that those belonging to the queer community were hunted down for not being what society calls mainstream. The same letter writer points out that there are plenty of national groups that fan the flames by calling queer people dangerous to today’s youths and blasting schools for teaching anything but what they consider traditional sex education.

Locally, Citizens for Responsible Education and others have been beating that drum the loudest. It seemed to start last spring when many in the community blasted the idea of a teen dance featuring a drag queen D.J. and later shifted to a coordinated effort to attack Newburyport Public Schools for having questionable books in the schools and allowing students access to an online database of books that included some sexually explicit books.

As it turned out, patrons at the nightclub were watching a drag show when the first bullet was shot.

When challenged about their thinly veiled disgust, CRE members said to a T they weren’t against the queer community but were only trying to protect their children. But their language and tone refutes that argument.

Their rhetoric marginalizes and trivializes every LGBTQ+ person. and what happens when you degrade someone or a group and make them feel less than? You lose empathy, you get angry, and you start justifying treating them differently, or in Colorado Springs violently.

It’s not rocket science. It’s been happening to Black people and anyone of color for centuries ... and women even longer.

And where is the CRE? Before the election, they were everywhere, or so it seemed. They were sending this newsroom plenty of letters to the editor and giving this editor plenty of flak for not covering their agenda exactly the way they wanted it to be covered.

They even hosted a community forum at the Newburyport Elks Club that featured an appearance by then-Secretary of State candidate Andrea Joy Campbell and drew a counterprotest outside the club. Check out Campbell’s website and it’s pretty easy to figure out where many in the CRE were getting their talking points.

With the election over and their patron saint without her statewide platform, the CRE is nowhere to be found. Is it a surprise? Hardly.

We’ve got it pretty good in Newburyport. For every CRE member, there are 20 people who will not stand for that kind of garbage. From the city’s Diversity Equity and Inclusion Alliance, to the Human Rights Commission, to Newburyport Youth Services to local and area officials, the LGBTQ+ community has plenty of allies and support.

But it only takes one deranged, angry person with access to a handgun or long rifle to wreak unspeakable horror upon this community or upon any of our neighbors.

Despite the state’s relatively strict gun laws, we shouldn’t rest easy thinking this could never happen here. It could. That’s what makes anti-queer rhetoric, either here or in other parts of the country, so scary and downright disgusting. Not one community is immune from hate or violence. Not one.

Dave Rogers is the editor of The Daily News. Email him at: drogers@newburyportnews. com.