I can’t talk to a guy there without feeling judged. “If I would go to straight bars, I can’t fully be myself there. “It’s the most iconic, quintessential place that I have ever identified with,” he said. Pulse was the first gay club he ever went to, and he went most Wednesday and Saturday evenings for the mix of top-40 music and hip-hop Pulse played those evenings. Their sanctuary had come under attack.Ĭampus life at UCF was fine, Mr. That’s why the massacre early Sunday that left 49 people dead and 27 still under a hospital’s care - many of them students, out being themselves - was especially traumatic for fellow students. And students go there to feel safe and free. A gay bar is a refuge to people whom lawmakers have actively legislated against, at whom relatives and peers have spewed vitriol and hatred.Ĭollege towns across the country have a Pulse.
Those naysayers, perhaps, have never rehearsed their gait or needed to adjust their intonation to fit in.
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A gay bar, drenched with alcohol and sweat, some may think, can’t be holy.īut those disbelievers have perhaps never found themselves meticulously studying the minutiae of how to eat, dress, walk, or talk to conform to some overly perfected gender stereotype just so no one beats them nearly to death. If Orlando’s popular gay bar, now the blood-bathed site of the nation’s worst mass shooting, was a sanctuary, its walls sheltered its congregation from the outside world. If Pulse were a chapel, its dancers would be its faithful flock. Above, people gathered at the Gainesville club on Monday night to pay their respects to the victims of the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub. University Club, in Gainesville, Fla., near the U. Bennett and Lindsey McPherson contributed to this report.Ĭontact Bowman follow her on breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call on your iPhone or your Android.Patricia Ochoa, WUFT News Gay bars in college towns offer LGBTQ students a sense of freedom that differs from what they may find on campus. “And this would be a prime location to do that.” “Clearly radical Islam wants to target the gay community,” Nunes told CNN on Sunday morning. Marco Rubio did make reference to the nature of the club. Hoyer of Maryland.īut some Republicans, including House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes of California, and Florida Sen. “Although the investigation remains ongoing, the fact that it targeted a place where LGBT Americans went to feel safe - and that it occurred during LGBT Pride Month - initially leads to the belief that this was not only an act of terrorism, but also a crime of hate and prejudice,” said House Minority Whip Steny H. June marks Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month with scores of events taking place across the country. The Democrat later added, “We can and we must do better - for Orlando, for San Bernardino and for us all.”ĭemocrats were also more likely to highlight the fact that the attack happened at a gay nightclub.
Pete Aguilar who represents San Bernardino. “Guns - guns designed to kill efficiently and quickly - have no place on our streets,” said Rep. The lawmaker representing San Bernadino also weighed in following the Orlando attack. ” “And I think that that debate can and should go on as well as the debate on how to best protect us against those who were inspired or funded or directed by international terrorists.”Ī similar dynamic emerged after the mass shooting in San Bernadino, California, in December. Jeff Flake of Arizona said on NBC’s “ Meet the Press “A lot of us have been talking for quite a while in terms of background checks and tightening background checks, particularly as it pertains to those with mental illness,” Sen. Murphy’s Senate counterpart, Democrat Richard Blumenthal, also said Senate inaction to prevent gun violence has made lawmakers “complicit in this public health crisis.”īut as details began to emerge Sunday morning about the attack, one Republican said the attack could foster debate in both areas. Murphy, a Democrat, represents the state that experienced a horrific mass shooting in 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown that left 26 dead.