Gay pride orlando shooting
![gay pride orlando shooting gay pride orlando shooting](https://2zwmzkbocl625qdrf2qqqfok-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/f.pride_.0627.jpg)
The national reaction was cold and callous at best, and viciously mocking at worst.
![gay pride orlando shooting gay pride orlando shooting](https://bdc2020.o0bc.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/cityhalllgbtflag-768x432.jpg)
The gay bar, which also hosted church services for an inclusive church, was set aflame on Jwitnesses described the doorbell ringing and, when the bartender answered, "a fireball burst through as if shot from a flamethrower," Elizabeth Dias and Jim Downs wrote in Time magazine in 2013. The deadliest anti-LGBTQ violence in American history, until Sunday, happened four years after Stonewall, at the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans, Louisiana. After centuries of oppression, they understood why people would feel the need to react violently to yet another sign of discrimination and oppression. Indiana University sociologists Elizabeth Armstrong and Suzanna Crage explained that the reaction to the police raid at Stonewall Inn - the riots - resonated with LGBTQ people. "Stonewall really was the first time that demonstrated that protesting and rioting and fighting back actually worked for the LGBT community."
![gay pride orlando shooting gay pride orlando shooting](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/resizer/VGRcWrW3KOR4-4o3vf13p6G8QI8=/800x444/top/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/GFWBKTM47NFOZELREM47URBSSU.jpg)
"Before Pride and Stonewall, there really wasn't a comprehensive LGBT movement," Kevin Nadal, executive director at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies, wrote. The knowledge and outrage of the Stonewall Riots gave LGBTQ advocates the momentum necessary to turn their cause into a true nationwide movement. The first pride march was held in 1970 in New York, a year after the Stonewall Riots, violent police raids on a gay- and transgender-friendly bar that led to four nights of rioting. So it’s particularly heartbreaking that it happened during LGBT Pride Month, a celebration that arose from violence, particularly police brutality, against LGBTQ people. The mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando Sunday morning, which left at least 50 people dead, isn’t just the deadliest mass shooting in American history - it’s the also the deadliest act of anti-LGBTQ violence.