Life

AOC slams anti-LGBTQ+ legislator Lauren Boebert for Colorado shooting response

By Conor Clark

21st November 2022

Democrat representative Alecandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) eviscerated anti-LGBTQ+ congresswoman Lauren Boebert for her response to the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Colorado.

Five people were killed and a further 25 injured after a 22-year-old opened fire at Club Q in Colorado Springs on the evening of 19 November.

In a tweet the following day, Boebert, the US representative for Colorado’s third congressional district, described the incident as “absolutely awful”.

“This morning the victims & their families are in my prayers,” she added.

“This lawless violence needs to end and end quickly.”

AOC was among those condemning Boebert’s comments and accused her of playing “a major role in elevating anti-LGBT+ hate rhetoric and anti-trans lies while spending your time in Congress blocking even the most common sense gun safety laws.”

“​​You don’t get to ‘thoughts and prayers’ your way out of this,” she added. “Look inward and change.”

The legislator has a long record of being anti-LGBTQ+ and previously criticised the Equality Act for promoting what she calls the “supremacy of gays”.

Boebert has also stated that transgender women take opportunities away from cisgender women, particularly in sport.

In addition to this, she opposes “efforts to redefine marriage as anything other than the union of one man and one woman” and has shared a number of tweets vilifying the art of drag.

“Take your children to CHURCH, not drag bars,” she wrote online in June of this year.

California State Senator Scott Wiener shared this tweet alongside his own words which said: “You regularly pour lighter fluid on anti-LGBTQ hate & help fuel this kind of violence. This bar was literally scheduled to host a drag brunch this morning — the exact people you regularly demonize as harming children. You’re complicit.”

Also critical of Boebert’s statement was Chasten Buttigieg, author and husband to Pete Buttigieg, who added that she encourages “this type of hatred. Get off Twitter and start looking inward.”