Focus on the Family, an Anti-LGBTQ+ Group, Defaced in Wake of Club Q
A sign at the Colorado Springs headquarters of anti-LGBTQ+ Christian group Focus on the Family was vandalized in protest of the mass shooting at Club Q in that city, a crime that left five people dead and nearly 20 injured.Someone spray-painted “Their blood is on your hands” and “Five lives taken” on the sign at Focus’s headquarters, The Denver Post reports.
Officials at the organization wouldn’t say exactly when the incident happened.A group called Colorado Peoples Press claimed responsibility for the incident. “We chose to proceed with this action because of the incredible violence that Focus on the Family continues to perpetuate” against LGBTQ+ people, the group said in a press release shared on Twitter.“These [five] individuals gathered at Club Q with friends and loved ones, new and old, to be in community and to grieve all the lives lost to transphobia,” the group added.
The shooting was an “act of hate,” it said. Focus on the Family is known for anti-LGBTQ+ stances. Its website contains many "resources" condemning homosexuality, marriage equality, and transgender identity.
In the 1990s, it "led the fundamentalist charge" for Amendment 2, a Colorado state constitutional amendment approved by voters that barred cities and counties in the state from adopting LGBTQ-inclusive antidiscrimination laws, the Southern Poverty Law Center notes.
