Scott Brown: Orlando Shooting Victims Weren’t Targeted Because They Were Gay

Wait, did he just steal a line from Clickhole?

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According to former Cosmo centerfold Scott Brown, the shooter responsible for the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history inside a packed Orlando gay nightclub during Pride Month didn’t necessarily target gay people.

In an appearance on Herald Radio, the one-term Massachusetts senator and Donald Trump surrogate said that while the shooting that left 49 dead and 53 injured was “deeply unfortunate,” he didn’t see any one group targeted in particular.

“It’s so tragic that you have people, and a lot of them were gay and lesbian and transgender, and that’s deeply unfortunate, but I think it’s more than that. They were Americans first,” Brown said. “I don’t identify the people who were murdered as from a particular class of people. I classify them as Americans, and it was an attack against all Americans, not just one particular class or type of American.”

If mental gymnastics were an Olympic sport, Brown ought to strap on a Zika-resistant leotard and see if it isn’t too late to qualify for Rio.

As noted by the Daily Beast‘s Ben Collins, the Republican’s remarks bear striking resemblance to a post on the satirical site Clickhole, titled, “6 Convoluted Ways of Thinking About The Orlando Shooting If You’d Prefer Not To Acknowledge It As An Anti-Gay Hate Crime.”

“Although the gunman specifically attacked a gay nightclub during Pride Month, this is really just an attack on the American way of life of going out on the weekends,” the listicle’s first entry reads. “There’s no need to defend the rights of gay people when you could instead just talk about how we’re not going to be scared away from fun nightlife activities.”

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, unlike nearly all Republicans in Congress, hasn’t tiptoed around the fact that members of the LGBTQ community were targeted in the attack, if only to further his scapegoating of the Muslim community.

Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 14, 2016

Remember, this all comes from the guy who, waaay back in February, said he would “strongly consider” appointing judges that would overturn gay marriage.