Knoxville's police chief says the man accused of a shooting that killed two people at a Tennessee church targeted the congregation because of its liberal social stance.
Chief Sterling Owen IV said Monday that police found a letter in Jim D. Adkisson's car. Owen said Adkisson was apparently frustrated over being out of work and had a "stated hatred of the liberal movement."
Adkisson is charged with first-degree murder. Police say a gunman entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during a children's performance Sunday. No children were hurt.
The church is known for advocating women's and gay rights and founding an American Civil Liberties Union chapter.
The irony of a person going into a church to attack liberalism is pretty amazing, but since the church was predominantly African American and the shooter was Caucasian, there may be more to this then just ideological differences.
Clearly this person was unhinged, but I have to say that the anger that is directed at liberals from the right wing media outlets like FOX News certainly cannot have helped but fan the flames of this man's psychosis.
Say what you want about liberals, but we don't usually shoot holes in people that we disagree with. But the anger and threats that pour out of the right wingers is deep, dangerous, and insane.
That's because conservatives are so much more afraid of everything than liberals are. And the irony is, the fear is of their own making.
ReplyDeleteJust to clear things up, the church is Not predominately black. It is made up of a broad spectrum of people from the community, many of which are professors at UT. They recently hung a sign out in front of the Church that faces Kingston Pike (a busy road in Knoxville) that said "Gays Welcome" or something similar. If anything, this welcoming and inclusive attitude is what may have sparked this lunatic right winger off. In the UU church, it is normal for an Atheist to sit next to a Buddhist to sit next to a Christian. It is this attitude that the right hates.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification on this Anonymous. Y9ou may be correct that this was more of an anti-gay attack then a racial attack.
ReplyDeleteI did read a lot more about this guys motivation and it does seem clear that his anger was fueled by the Right Wing disinformation machine. They turned a frustrated man into an instrument of death.
I hope they are proud.