COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Last weekend's tragedy at Club Q, when an attacker killed two bartenders and three customers and shot 17 others inside the nightclub before two patrons intervened, in several ways united what some view as a divided community.
Differences on religion, politics and sexual orientation and identity seemingly were set aside as grief took over, and thousands of mourners laid flowers and notes near the site, attended memorials and vigils, and donated generously to fundraisers benefiting victims.
The city's willingness to respond to a horrifying situation with compassion, sensitivity and respect might be the catalyst that helps lift the negative perception about Colorado Springs and its attitude toward LGBTQ people that has lingered for three decades, said Sophie Bjork-James, assistant professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt University.
"There's been a lot of people coming out in support of the local queer community," she said, "which I think can make a huge difference."
Bjork-James conducted research on evangelical Christian anti-LGBT bias in Colorado Springs from 2008 to 2016 and last year published a book on the topic, "The Divine Institution: White Evangelicalism's Politics of the Family."
"Moving forward, the entire community — even people who wouldn't want to go to a gay club — is going to have to come out and say, 'We want everyone to feel safe in our community,'" she said. "It takes the majority of the community to show that in their actions."
Whether the stain of a 30-year-old anti-gay rights movement that originated in Colorado Springs and resulted in statewide legislation that prohibited legal protections for sexual orientation will fade remains unclear. An act of vandalism less than a handful of days after the shooting seemed to underscore the tense divide.
A large stone sign at the front of the campus of Focus on the Family, an evangelical Christian communications organization that relocated its headquarters from California to Colorado Springs in 1991, was spray-painted in black overnight Wednesday with the words: "Their blood is on your hands" and "Five lives taken."
Focus President Jim Daly said Friday in a statement that while the organization recognizes the community is hurting in the aftermath of "the reckless and violent actions of a very disturbed individual, this is a time for prayer, grieving and healing, not vandalism and the spreading of hate."
He urged everyone to pray for peace.
"The families of the individuals killed in Saturday night's senseless attack are in our prayers," Daly said. "We also pray for the individual or group responsible for this unwarranted defacing of our ministry's property."
Social media and some LGBTQ publications also cast blame on Focus on the Family, which supports traditional marriage, gender identity and sexual orientation.
Overall, "Damage was done, and it runs deep," said Carolyn Cathey, a longtime local gay-rights activist. "We definitely have come a long way, but we have a long way to go."
It's unfair to point the finger at Christians as having a role in the shooting or any other violence, Daly said in an interview.
"It's very disparaging to take these acts of violence and associate them with groups of people that have a different point of view," Daly said. "That's not how we solve problems."
Focus on the Family is often labeled by people who disagree with their beliefs as a hate group against LGBTQ people, Daly said.
But that's not true, he said.
"We're Christian folks following Scripture that indicates how we should behave and treat people, and how marriage is defined by God, as between a man and a woman," Daly said. "People have the right to disagree, and Focus and other Christians have the right to believe what they believe."
Evangelical Christians were at the forefront of Amendment 2, Bjork-James said, a ballot measure voters approved in November 1992 to ban the state and its municipalities from enacting anti-discrimination safeguards for gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
"I understand the city has changed quite a bit, but for so long Colorado Springs was a center of anti-LGBTQ organizing both in Colorado Springs and nationally, so there has been a long history of discrimination, and there have been long-term effects," Bjork-James said.
Those responsible for the vandalism, like the action of the shooting suspect, do not represent the entirety of the community, many say.
Rich Ferraro, spokesperson for the Los Angeles-based Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, or GLAAD, spoke at last Tuesday's City Council meeting on behalf of the national LGBTQ community.
"My message to the council (was) it's been absolutely incredible to see how everyone here in Colorado Springs is coming together," he said. "It's not just LGBTQ people but the entire city standing united together. That love and affirmation for the LGBTQ community, the LGBTQ community wants to see that going forward."
Over the past three decades, Focus on the Family, churches and other groups have held community discussions on gay rights.
"I am sure that there remains antagonism in our city as in every city to some degree or another, but the heads of Christian churches and organizations I believe on both sides of the debate have sought greater understanding from one another," said the Rev. Kelly Williams, pastor of Vanguard Church. His Southern Baptist congregation in Colorado Springs has hosted some of the conversations.
"Our philosophy was to add a name and a face to an issue so that we could show love and respect to one another while we may disagree on the matters at hand," Williams said, adding that one event drew 1,200 attendees.
Local churches of 2022 "don't purport hate," Williams said. "Disagreement, yes, but not hate," he said.
Court documents filed last week by defense attorneys in the Club Q shooting indicate that the suspect, Anderson Lee Aldrich, identifies as nonbinary, which describes a person who does not identify exclusively as a man or a woman.
The motions address Aldrich as "Mx. Aldrich," which is the title given to those who are considered nonbinary.
Some question whether Aldrich is part of the LGBTQ community or whether such an identification is a defense tactic.
Regardless of how Aldrich identifies, the suspected shooter "still committed an act of hate," said Liss Smith, spokesperson for Inside Out Youth Services, which supports LGBTQ teens and young adults.
"Society teaches us so much shame, and internalized homophobia or transphobia is more common than we like to admit," she said.
"While none of us can speak to the shooter's inner feelings, we can certainly see how our culture incites us to feel shame, hatred for who we are and even hatred for other members of our LGBTQ community."
Social media is rife with debates about the "right" kind of queer person, Smith said, "often villainizing overt sexuality or trans identities, using the same rhetoric that is used to attack our community as a whole."
Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric from the 1970s has been recycled, she said, with LGBTQ adolescents reporting cyberbullying, misidentifying names and pronouns at school and other problems.
"When bullying and discrimination happens, it's still coming from that same place of fear and ignorance and folks who don't understand," Smith said.
Owners of some local LGBTQ-oriented businesses said at local vigils for shooting victims that their companies have been targeted because of their openness.
Authorities have said they are investigating the shooting as a hate crime.
Hate crimes against LGBTQ people are the second-highest category of hate crimes in Colorado Springs, according to police data.
A total of 22 hate crimes against gays, lesbians and bisexuals have occurred since 2019; hate crimes against Blacks top the list with 54 incidents in the past four years, Colorado Springs Police statistics show.
In announcing the names of the five people who died in the Club Q shooting, Colorado Springs Police made a point of issuing pronouns along with the names of deceased victims given by families, out of respect, officials said.
Improvements include laws that provide protection for when LGBTQ people are wronged, and LGTBQ people serving in the military, gay-rights activist Cathey said.
"What's different is the attack on our school system and erasing history and inclusiveness for our children," she said, referring to the so-called "don't say gay" movement in some school districts in various states, including Florida.
"We continuously have to work to fight what was taken from us by hateful people in 1992," Cathey said.
Many acknowledge that Colorado Springs has changed for the better.
"We're not the hate city we were in 1992," said Smith of Inside Out Youth Services.
Passage of the controversial Amendment 2 spawned a national debate over gay rights and presented the first anti-gay case to the United States Supreme Court. The high court struck down the legislation in 1996, deeming it unconstitutional.
Even though the legislation was never enacted, harsh criticism, boycotts and other blowback ensued, as Colorado became known as the anti-gay state and the "hate state."
Evangelicals Bjork-James interviewed in Colorado Springs agreed that to be gay, bisexual or transgender was to be outside of God's desires, which she believed birthed the movement to pass Amendment 2.
"It seemed like their actions opposing rights for sexual minorities was one of the most important things of their faith," Bjork-James said.
Today, Colorado is considered one of the nation's most progressive states, with an openly gay governor and his husband as first gentleman, robust legal protections for the LGBTQ population and among the country's most liberal abortion laws.
While El Paso County retains a conservative stronghold politically, the gap is narrowing.
Smith of Inside Out Youth Services thinks it's unfortunate that the national spotlight that has shown on Colorado Springs for the past week has focused on the city's historical reputation.
It's important, she said, to not only understand the history but also recognize that the city has matured and grown not only demographically and culturally, but also morally, to the point that it's "more inclusive and accepting" of the LGBTQ community.
That being said, "The shooting highlights that our work on growth is not done," Smith said.
Daly of Focus on the Family also sees the old narrative as no longer applying to today's city.
"As a Christian leader in Colorado Springs, I'm never in a conversation that's denigrating to the LGBT community," he said. "Most Christians I know and interact with are big believers that everybody's created in the image of God, and everybody is due respect — even if we disagree on social issues or politics."
Bjork-James believes the shooting reinforces the idea that Colorado Springs is not a welcoming place but still thinks the sensitivity and compassion can prevail for the long-term.
"We all want to ensure our community is not defined by this tragedy but by our response to it," Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said at one of last week's media briefings.
Cathey, one of the speakers at a memorial service last Sunday at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church, said city and state leaders would not have attended such an event 30 years ago, but the fight for gay rights has led to such progress.
"We have seen an evolution of tolerance and inclusion," Cathey said in an interview. "Some of our leaders are not just allies, but they're accomplices in making our city a great, inclusive city."
