"But the Orlando massacre was certainly a hate crime, a bias-motivated attack aimed directly at the LGBTQ community for whom Pulse was a safe home and place of celebration,"
said MSNBC after the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in an article titled "Why calling the Orlando shooting a hate crime matters: analysis".
A narrative was being spread throughout mainstream media like wildfire."Was Orlando shooting terror or homophobia? Yes.",
claimed a CNN headline.
"ISIL or not, Orlando shooting was hate crime against LGBT people,"
chirped another by
USA Today.
"Orlando nightclub gunman remembered as abusive, homophobic and racist,"
added another header from the
LA Times.
The Daily Beast published a story with the header and sub-header, "Omar Mateen Committed LGBT Mass Murder. We Must Confront That. - The media and politicians are in retreat from calling Omar Mateen's massacre an act of anti-LGBT hate. Especially in Pride month, this erasure must not happen."
"ORLANDO SHOOTING: HATE CRIME BY A LONE WOLF RATHER THAN ISIS-LED ATTACK,"
blared Newsweek.
"Orlando Attack Roils Gay Community, Painfully Accustomed to Violence,"
added the
New York Times.
"Call the Orlando massacre a hate crime: This was an attack on the LGBT community - and that matters,"
said Salon.
"The Orlando Shootings Were Homophobic Terrorism, Whether You Like to Admit That or Not,"
added the Huffington Post.
Comment: Conservative pundits seem to be increasingly under attack in the current landscape, both on social media, in the press, speaking engagements and now also in being blocked from entering "free countries" who supposedly uphold some level of freedom of speech. See also:
- European women fight back with anti-migrant violence campaign video
- Conservative media under attack: Here are some of the prominent conservative websites who are victims of the tech giant purge list
- YouTube shuts down conservative channels, says it was an 'accident'
- Project Veritas catches Twitter engineers explaining how they censor conservative viewpoints (VIDEO)
UPDATE: Apparently Sellner and Pettibone have been released.Update 2: Independent journalist Laura Southern was also subjected to the same treatment. She was detained in Calais by UK border authorities. Tommy Robinson traveled to Calais to interview Southern about her experience.