As the full scope of Sunday’s terrorist attack in Orlando continues to be revealed, America’s LGBT community finds itself at an ideological crossroads. On one side, a group that has shown past apprehension with embracing their lifestyle, but one that stands ready to fight to the death for their right to maintain that lifestyle. On the other, a group that has whole-heartedly embraced that lifestyle but continues to show virtually no willingness to defend its right to exist from those who wish to destroy it.

That hesitation from the left became apparent in their ever-evolving response to Sunday’s tragedy as the story continued to develop. At first, the usual hodgepodge of gun-grabbing buzz words and narratives (“assault weapons,” “hunting,” “Australia”) infected social media platforms across the web, as has become custom in the wake of such tragedies. And yet even as the perpetrator and his motives for the shooting became apparent, the left marched on with their usual Second Amendment hand-wringing, mixing condemnations of “gun violence” with generalized denunciations of human depravity and reminders that there are, in fact, unsavory members of every religious group, therefore the only existing problem is with the observers who notice that one particular group seems to be overrepresented in incidents of religious violence and bloodshed.

The left has always been quick to the aid of the LGBT community on matters of hate and bigotry, but for the first time on American soil, an uglier hate was presented to that community. Not a “hate” of the “uncomfortable with baking a cake for your wedding” variety, but of the “shoot you with a gun because of the person that you are” type.

Up to this point, it’s been quite easy for LGBT Americans to attach themselves to the progressive left, who have only had to fight for gay rights on a surface level, not an existential one. But for the LGBT community, when the progressive response to an ideology that advocates for their violent extermination is to confront it with political correctness and kid gloves, suddenly the right to continue living seems to take precedence over the right to use the bathroom or florist of your choice. And after Paris, Brussels, San Bernardino, and now Orlando, when it’s become abundantly clear that the fight with that ideology could soon be coming to a nightclub, concert hall, airport, or office park near you, the seriousness of that fight takes on a much graver importance.

So if members of the LGBT community find themselves more nervous about bloodthirsty religious zealots standing on our doorstep who wish to slaughter them than they are about guns, I would like to extend a formal invitation to them to join us in the conservative movement. We are more than happy to fight for you too.