In Pulse tributes, some politicians omit ‘LGBT’

Florida’s politicians produced a torrent of words — speeches, tweets, official statements and proclamations — to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Pulse nightclub massacre.

Missing from some of the commemorations was a central element, that the attack was against patrons of Latin night at an LGBT club in Orlando.

That’s a major omission, said Mayor Gary Resnick of Wilton Manors, the unofficial capital of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning community in South Florida.

“To the LGBTQ community, Pulse is like our 9/11. There is pre-Pulse and an after-Pulse, and we know exactly where we were when we learned about it,” he said. “It’s a little hypocritical of them to be putting out those types of messages and not putting out any type of support for the LGBT community.”

Statements from two of the state’s top elected Republicans made no reference to the LGBT community.

Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who is seeking the 2018 Republican nomination for governor, issued a statement and tweeted about the first anniversary of the June 12, 2016, attack — the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history. Putnam offered prayers for the family, friends and loved ones of those who were killed and praised first responders but said nothing about the LGBT community.

Likewise, Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, tweeted that Monday was a day to “remember the loved & lost in the terror attack at the Pulse nightclub.” No mention of the LGBT community. Corcoran is a possible candidate for governor.

Fred Fejes, a professor of communication and multimedia studies at Florida Atlantic University, said the omissions by those who didn’t mention the LGBT or Hispanic elements of the attack are “very telling.”

“For some public officials, acknowledging the existence of the LGBT community and somehow including them into American society, they’re not very comfortable with that. A lot of that discomfort has to do with political reasons. They don’t want to identify in any way with the LGBT community,” he said.

Fejes, the author of “Gay Rights and Moral Panic: The Origins of America’s Debate on Homosexuality” and co-editor of “The Ideology of the Information Age,” said it’s not simply a matter of words. “It’s a way of minimizing the existence and the legitimacy of the LGBT community.”

Miik Martorell, president of Pride Fort Lauderdale, said not referring to the LGBT community avoids the full story about what happened that night.

“It happened specifically in an LGBTQ night club that was hosting a Latin night,” Martorell said. “I don’t understand why someone can’t just get over it and say it ... It’s not just a massacre. It’s a massacre in our community, the LGBTQ community.”