In the aftermath of the Orlando massacre at a gay nightclub, both Gov. Bill Haslam and House Speaker Beth Harwell tweeted to followers encouraging them to pray for Orlando.

The gall, the unmitigated gall, of these people who have worked to allow therapists to refuse gay people access to needed counseling, who are suing to undo gay marriage, who made it illegal for Nashville and other Tennessee cities to protect LGBT people from employment discrimination, and who want to police whether people are gender-conforming enough to pee in public, praying for dead gay people and encouraging others to pray for these poor dead gay people.

Can you stand to dwell, for just a minute, on how prayer has been weaponized against gay people in this country for decades? How many people have had to listen to their parents praying to God they'd turn back from their "sinful" natures? How many children we stuffed into "Pray Away The Gay" camps? How often gay people have to hear that God doesn't and couldn't possibly want them in His house, to share in His blessing, to partake in His sacraments? That God hates fags?

And now that they're dead you're going to extend to them the loving kind of prayer?`

If what happened in Orlando happened in Tennessee and Haslam and Harwell and their cronies had their way, the men who hid from the shooter in the women's restroom would have been breaking the law*; people looking for their loved ones risk being turned away from hospitals because those loved ones couldn't be their spouses; people distraught over watching people be murdered in front of them could be turned away by the counselors they turn to for help; and, if someone's employer sees their name among the injured, that employer could fire that injured person for being gay.

That's the kind of state you want and you're going to pray for these poor dead gay people?

State Rep. Andy Holt, who's giving away the same gun the shooter used because it's the same gun the shooter used (two of them, in fact), ranted on Facebook:

While I am a conservative Christian, my heart literally breaks for these women and men on so many levels. I'm furious that these same liberal democrats rushing to condemn conservative Christians that may disagree with a lifestyle, simultaneously rush to defend a religion that readily hangs and massacres gays and lesbians.

And I have to ask you, Bill Haslam and Beth Harwell, what do you think it means to "disagree with a lifestyle"? What do you suppose an ideal version of Tennessee would look like to your buddy, Andy Holt? Is it where no one "practices" this "lifestyle"?

Are your LGBT constituents supposed to feels safe, when a guy who "disagreed" with their "lifestyle" just murdered fifty people, that another guy who "disagrees" with their "lifestyle" is handing out the same fucking gun to his friends?

Where on the continuum of "I don't want gay people doing gay things and I want to stop them " are Tennessee's gays and lesbians still safe? Can you answer that?

Obviously, when people who "disagree" with the gay "lifestyle" point guns at gay people, gay people are in grave danger. But when a guy who "disagrees" with the gay "lifestyle" just gives the gun used in the attack to his friends precisely because it's the gun used in the attack? Should gay people be afraid then? When that guy is an elected official? Afraid then? When the governor won't veto a bill that forbids cities from protecting gay people? Should they be afraid then?

What I most want to know, though, Haslam and Harwell, is what you prayed when you heard about Orlando. It's a private thing, I know, but, if your very first impulse was to pray for the people in the nightclub to be okay, then I am begging you to let that change your hearts toward gay people here in Tennessee. Stop passing and signing legislation that deliberately makes it harder for gay people in this state to be okay.

But if your first impulse was to pray for the usual bullshit people pray over gay people about, then don't bother. People are grieving. They don't need your insulting prayers.



*I feel the need to clarify this. Susan Lynn's bill, at least what we saw this year, would not require all businesses in Tennessee to discriminate against trans people who want to use the right bathroom. It only keeps students in public schools, including universities, from using the right bathrooms and locker rooms. But many supporters of this bill are under the impression — an impression they continue to get from legislators who say "Well, it's just common sense. Why would anyone want a grown man in the little girl's room? "— that it would apply to all bathrooms and people of all ages. Since this is a common and popular take on the bill, I'm assuming that's the bathroom bill supporters' end game.



