Back when I was a hippie (for three hours in 1968) I thought the American Civil Liberties Union was pretty cool.  They seemed to always jump to the defense of the underdog, but over the years they seemed to have decided that justice was something for their big supporters and they always jumped on the bandwagon when someone outside of their narrow focus was under attack.  Especially Christians.  I’m no fan of the Westboro Baptist Church (which uses the bible as just cause for all kinds of hate, forgetting that the primary message of Jesus was love), and sometimes the Christian right is sooooo far right, that they’ve become left, but I really think it’s a stretch when people start blaming Christians for thing like the horrible shooting at the gay bar in Orlando.

The ACLU recently issue a statement that “Christian conservatives are responsible for the mass shooting at a gay bar in Orlando because they “created this anti-queer climate.”

Nearly fifty people were killed by Omar Mateen, a U.S. citizen born to Afghan parents suspected to have “leanings toward extreme Islamic ideologies.” The FBI is investigating the attack as a “domestic terror incident.”  How are Christians responsible for an extreme Muslim’s anti-gay beliefs.  Muslims are waaaaaaayyy more anti-gay them Christians.  Christians protested gay marriage but that’s a long way from interpreting the Koran to justify killing them.

ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted this last Sunday morning: “You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate.”

Christians did not create anti-gay sentiment.  In fact,  Christians seem to be the only anti-gay group that reaches out to gays with love and hope.  Not all Christians, however,

Chase Strangio, who spends much of his life targeting Christians for homophobia and everything else and his colleagues connected the Orlando shooting to Christians and Republican politicians who opposed gay marriage. “The Christian Right has introduced 200 anti-LGBT bills in the last six months and people blaming Islam for this,” Strangio tweeted.

Another ACLU attorney who specializes in religious liberty issues scolded Republican lawmakers who tweeted out their condolences. “Remember when you co-sponsored extreme, anti-LGBT First Amendment Defense Act?” the ACLU’s Eunice Rho tweeted at Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and other Republicans.  House Speaker Paul Ryan was careful not to jump to conclusions about the attacker on Sunday morning. “We pray for those brutally attacked in Orlando,” Ryan tweeted. “While we must learn more about the attacker, the victims & families will not be forgotten.”

Strangio rebuffed that message as well. “But there will be no self-reflection and people like you will continue to fuel and embolden this type of hatred,” he wrote in a retweet of Ryan’s note.

Everyone is blaming someone else for this atrocity — how about just blaming Omar Mateen, the man who planned out and executed it, and stopping there.  Sure, maybe his religion, his nationality, parents, his neighbor, his boss or the girl who dumped him in high school had something to do with it.  Maybe he had a bad dream or a band lunch as well.  Nut he did it and he did it alone.  It seems as if the media and the politicians can no longer discuss something without attaching blame and twisting the facts to fit their agenda.  And that fact may be the biggest tragedy of them all.

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