The June 12, 2016, Pulse nightclub shooting is, among other things, a searing indictment of the national press’ eagerness to believe the absolute worst about the Right and about Christians in particular.
It was casually assumed that the gunman, Omar Mateen, targeted Pulse specifically because it was a gay bar. But even more than that, his avowed Islamic State affiliation was overlooked so that certain reporters, pundits, and editorial boards (ahem, New York Times) could claim that the shooting was motivated by conservative U.S. politics and “an effort to approve discrimination against gay and transgender people nationwide under the guise of religious freedom.”
So, this is how an Islamic terror attack was blamed on American conservatives and Christians.
Some outlets went even further, concocting a conspiracy theory that the Pulse shooting had nothing to do with Islamic terrorism — that Mateen was an uncomfortably closeted homosexual and a regular at Pulse, and that this had to do with his grudge against the LGBT community.
However, putting aside for a moment the obvious flaws in arguing that any evangelical conservative is somehow to blame for the actions of a Muslim man with whom he has never met or spoken, there is no evidence showing Mateen targeted Pulse because it was a gay bar. And in fact, there never was any evidence of this, as the now-concluded trial of his wife demonstrated.
“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,” the Huffington Post reported this week in an article with the clearheaded headline, “Everyone Got The Pulse Massacre Story Completely Wrong.” – READ MORE
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