Christian fascists attack gay bar

Like anyone else watching the news last weekend, we were saddened to hear what took place in Colorado Springs. We join with others in mourning the loss of those whose lives were taken and offer prayers of comfort and deepest condolences to their loved ones. We also pray for healing for the survivors of this shocking shooting and express our love to them.

Scandalizing big things. Without even waiting until a day had passed and more was known, some began leveraging the speculation to paint the most incendiary and dark picture imaginable. It started with these tweets from one of our own brothers of faith:. Over the days that followed, a convulsion of similar commentary seized upon Twitter, a small sampling of which follows:.

All this was taken for granted as being the clearest explanation for the violence—including two different Newsweek articles by Khaleda Rahman and Nick Reynolds.

Anti-Trans Campaigns Set the Stage for Far-Right Attacks on Pride Festivities

Then, on Tuesday of this week, more information came to light. Wait just a minute. Hold the phone. All that stuff about how he clearly must have attacked people at this bar because of deep-seated hatred towards gay people no doubt due to his Latter-day Saint upbringing? Big whoops. Oh, and he abandoned the Church a decade ago too.

And just like that, much of the energy went out of the well-oiled grievance machine online. Did we see public expressions of self-reflection and acknowledgment of error—perhaps even an article retraction and tweet-deletion or two? And whatever news—big or small—that might advance this great cause is game.

Scandalizing small things. On the face, the tweet seemed designed to insinuate some sort of malfeasance afoot. We had the same question. When we reached out to Peggy for comment, we appreciated her quick response. I was hoping for a conversation about when journalists should disclose their associations. In the end, I thought we could just agree to disagree.

It was not personal. A journalism that embraces body slams. Among other things, it feels like we are witnessing the slow degradation of journalism, taking its place alongside a deformed atmosphere in both higher and primary education. Imagine if we began to accept body slams as an acceptable form of contact in basketball, then went on pretending it was still a normal basketball game we were watching.

Body slams would fundamentally change the game.