Vigil Held For The Club Q Victims: LGBTQ Leaders Demand Safety And Justice

New Orleans Queer Community held a vigil for the Club Q victims who were shot dead by an anti-queer person on 19th November at Club Q in Colorado Springs. The shooting was a shock for the LGBTQ community who expressed their deep-seated anguish and resentment against the incident.

The incident took place last week when 5 people were shot dead and around two dozen were severely injured during an LGBTQ mass event in Colorado Springs. The shocking incident took place on the National Transgender Day of Remembrance and during its celebrations of it.

LGBTQ Leaders Demand Safety And Justice At Club Q Vigil

Police have arrested a 22-year-old gunman named Anderson Lee Aldrich for causing the mass shooting and turmoil at the event. According to Mars Ness-Ludwig, the vigil organizer, the atrocities against the LGBTQ community are intensifying the question of safety for queer people. Miss Ludwig has raised the question that if such incidents are to be continued how can queer people be ever safe in the community.

As a result of the incident, many queer leaders have presented their concerns regarding the security of the queer community.

According to Rynn Willgohs, one of the event coordinators, the queer community has been under a lot of pressure recently. In his words, the mass shooter of the incident is being hailed as a hero by society. And queer people don’t feel safe with this government.

As a remembrance of the victims of the mass shooting, the organizers of the New Orleans queer community conducted a candlelight vigil at 6 pm on 22nd November, Tuesday.

The vigil was conducted by lighting candles on the public sidewalks around Broadway Square in downtown Fargo. Before the vigil, a drag show named ‘ Thick Thighs and Pumpkin Pies’ was conducted.

As part of the program around 40 community members participated in the vigil. The meeting asserted the need for defending the queer community in the face of recent attacks against LGBTQ people.

According to the organizers of the event, the mass shooting was an aftermath of the re-election campaign of Donald Trump. It reflected the anti-gay policies introduced by Louisiana statesmen in bringing the Don’t Say Gay bill to the US Congress.

One of the possible effects of the bill will be preventing any kind of support for queer or sexually-oriented programs.

The propounders of queer community criticized the government for showing green flags for anti-queer people. For them, mass shootings like this take place when the government stays with the oppressor and not with the oppressed.

The vigil for the victims of the Colorado shooting openly expressed their worries about the current situation. The meeting commemorated the courageous lives taken by the Colorado attacker.

The attendees of the vigil lit up candles and followed a minute of silence for the 5 people killed in the shooting namely- Raymond Green Vance, Kelly Loving, Daniel Aston, Derrick Rump, and Ashley Paugh.

As per the verdict made by police, they are still in the investigation phase where the motive of the killer hasn’t been revealed yet. The attacker and the prime suspect Anderson Lee Aldrich have been caught with the charges of committing murder and planning a bias-motivated crime.

>Related: Local Gay Bar Increases Security As LGBTQ Community Mourns Club Q Victims

For the city dwellers of Colorado, it was a peaceful place for the LGBTQ community to hang with. But the recent events have made the space a threatening hang-out area for queer people again.

In light of the current incident, the Anti-Defamation League, specializing in civil rights, has made a statement requesting the intervention of the White House in this matter to safeguard complete security for the LGBTQ community henceforth.