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  • Gay club owner: Shooting comes amid a new ‘type of hate’

    Gay club owner: Shooting comes amid a new ‘type of hate’

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    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The co-owner of the Colorado Springs gay nightclub where a shooter turned a drag queen’s birthday celebration into a massacre said he thinks the shooting that killed five people and injured 17 others is a reflection of anti-LGBTQ sentiment that has evolved from prejudice to incitement.

    Nic Grzecka’s voice was tinged with exhaustion as he spoke with The Associated Press on Wednesday night in some of his first comments since Saturday night’s attack at Club Q, a venue Grzecka helped build into an enclave that sustained the LGBTQ community in conservative-leaning Colorado Springs.

    Authorities haven’t said why the suspect opened fired at the club before being subdued into submission by patrons, but they are facing hate crime charges. The suspect, Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, has not entered a plea or spoken about the incident.

    Grzecka said he believes the targeting of a drag queen event is connected to the art form being cast in a false light in recent months by right-wing activists and politicians who complain about the “sexualization” or “grooming” of children. Even though general acceptance of the LGBTQ community has grown, this new dynamic has fostered a dangerous climate.

    “It’s different to walk down the street holding my boyfriend’s hand and getting spit at (as opposed to) a politician relating a drag queen to a groomer of their children,” Grzecka said. “I would rather be spit on in the street than the hate get as bad as where we are today.”

    Earlier this year, Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature passed a bill barring teachers from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation with younger students. A month later, references to “pedophiles” and “grooming” in relation to LGBTQ people rose 400%, according to a report by the Human Rights Campaign.

    “Lying about our community, and making them into something they are not, creates a different type of hate,” said Grzecka.

    Grzecka, who started mopping floors and bartending at Club Q in 2003 a year after it opened, said he hopes to channel his grief and anger into figuring out how to rebuild the support system for Colorado Springs’ LGBTQ community that only Club Q had provided.

    City and state officials have offered support and President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden reached out to Grzecka and co-owner Matthew Haynes on Thursday to offer condolences and reiterate their support for the community as well as their commitment to fighting back against hate and gun violence.

    Grzecka said Club Q opened after the only other gay bar in Colorado Springs at that time shuttered. He described that era as an evolution of gay bars. Decades ago, dingy, hole-in-the-wall gay venues were meant largely for finding a hookup or date, said Grzecka. But he said once the internet offered anonymous ways to find love online, the bars transitioned into well lit, clean non-smoking spaces to hang out with friends. Club Q was at the vanguard of that transition.

    Once he became co-owner in 2014, Grzecka helped mold Club Q into not merely a nightlife venue but a community center – a platform to create a “chosen family” for LGBTQ people, especially for those estranged from their birth family. Drag queen bingo nights, friendsgiving and Christmas dinners, birthday celebrations became staples of Club Q which was open 365 days a year.

    In the aftermath of the shooting, with that community center having been torn away, Grzecka and other community leaders said they are channeling grief and anger into reconstituting the support structure that only Club Q had offered.

    “When that system goes away, you realize how much more the bar was really providing,” said Justin Burn, an organizer with Pikes Peak Pride. “Those that may or may not have been a part of the Club Q family, where do they go?”

    Burn said the shooting pulled back a curtain on a broader lack of resources for LGBTQ adults in Colorado Springs. Burn, Grzecka and others are working with national organizations to do an assessment of the community’s need as they develop a blueprint to offer a robust support network.

    Grzecka is looking to rebuild the “loving culture” and necessary support to “make sure that this tragedy is turned into the best thing it can be for the city.”

    “Everybody needs community,” he said.

    ———

    Jesse Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • Gay club owner: Shooting comes amid a new ‘type of hate’

    Gay club owner: Shooting comes amid a new ‘type of hate’

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    COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The co-owner of the Colorado Springs gay nightclub where a shooter turned a drag queen’s birthday celebration into a massacre said he thinks the shooting that killed five people and injured 17 others is a reflection of anti-LGBTQ sentiment that has evolved from prejudice to incitement.

    Nic Grzecka’s voice was tinged with exhaustion as he spoke with The Associated Press on Wednesday night in some of his first comments since Saturday night’s attack at Club Q, a venue Grzecka helped build into an enclave that sustained the LGBTQ community in conservative-leaning Colorado Springs.

    Authorities haven’t said why the suspect opened fired at the club before being subdued into submission by patrons, but they are facing hate crime charges. The suspect, Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, has not entered a plea or spoken about the incident.

    Grzecka said he believes the targeting of a drag queen event is connected to the art form being cast in a false light in recent months by right-wing activists and politicians who complain about the “sexualization” or “grooming” of children. Even though general acceptance of the LGBTQ community has grown, this new dynamic has fostered a dangerous climate.

    “It’s different to walk down the street holding my boyfriend’s hand and getting spit at to a politician relating a drag queen to a groomer of their children,” Grzecka said. “I would rather be spit on in the street than the hate get as bad as where we are today.”

    Earlier this year, Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature passed a bill barring teachers from discussing gender identity or sexual orientation with younger students. A month later, references to “pedophiles” and “grooming” in relation to LGBTQ people rose 400%, according to a report by the Human Rights Campaign.

    “Lying about our community, and making them into something they are not, creates a different type of hate,” said Grzecka.

    Grzecka, who started mopping floors and bartending at Club Q in 2003 a year after it opened, said he hopes to channel his grief and anger into figuring out how to rebuild the support system for Colorado Springs’ LGBTQ community that only Club Q had provided.

    City and state officials have offered support and President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden reached out to Grzecka and co-owner Matthew Haynes on Thursday to offer condolences and reiterate their support for the community as well as their commitment to fighting back against hate and gun violence.

    Grzecka said Club Q opened after the only other gay bar in Colorado Springs at that time shuttered. He described that era as an evolution of gay bars. Decades ago, dingy, hole-in-the-wall gay venues were meant largely for finding a hookup or date, said Grzecka. But he said once the internet offered anonymous ways to find love online, the bars transitioned into well lit, clean non-smoking spaces to hang out with friends. Club Q was at the vanguard of that transition.

    Once he became co-owner in 2014, Grzecka helped mold Club Q into not merely a nightlife venue but a community center – a platform to create a “chosen family” for LGBTQ people, especially for those estranged from their birth family. Drag queen bingo nights, friendsgiving and Christmas dinners, birthday celebrations became staples of Club Q which was open 365 days a year.

    In the aftermath of the shooting, with that community center having been torn away, Grzecka and other community leaders said they are channeling grief and anger into reconstituting the support structure that only Club Q had offered.

    “When that system goes away, you realize how much more the bar was really providing,” said Justin Burn, an organizer with Pikes Peak Pride. “Those that may or may not have been a part of the Club Q family, where do they go?”

    Burn said the shooting pulled back a curtain on a broader lack of resources for LGBTQ adults in Colorado Springs. Burn, Grzecka and others are working with national organizations to do an assessment of the community’s need as they develop a blueprint to offer a robust support network.

    Grzecka is looking to rebuild the “loving culture” and necessary support to “make sure that this tragedy is turned into the best thing it can be for the city.”

    “Everybody needs community,” he said.

    ———

    Jesse Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • China accuses US of ‘Cold War thinking’ in security strategy

    China accuses US of ‘Cold War thinking’ in security strategy

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    BEIJING — The Chinese government on Thursday accused Washington of “Cold War thinking” and appealed for efforts to repair strained relations after President Joe Biden released a national security strategy that calls for “out-competing China” and blocking its efforts to reshape global affairs.

    The foreign ministry also accused Washington of trade protectionism after Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the United States would reinforce its global supply chains to guard against “geopolitical coercion” by China, Russia and other governments.

    Biden’s document Wednesday accused China of trying to “erode U.S. alliances” and “create more permissive conditions for its own authoritarian model.” It called for “out-competing China” in political alliances and “global governance” as well as business, technology and military affairs.

    U.S.-Chinese relations are at their lowest level in decades, strained by disputes over technology, security, Taiwan and human rights.

    “Cold War thinking and zero-sum games, sensationalizing geopolitical conflicts and great power competition are unpopular and unconstructive,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. She called on Washington to “meet China halfway and promote China-U.S. relations back to a healthy and stable track.”

    The White House document calls for the United States to “maintain a competitive edge” over China, which has antagonized Japan, India and other neighbors with an increasingly assertive foreign policy and growing military.

    China’s multibillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative to build ports, railways and other infrastructure across Asia and Africa has fed concern in Washington, Moscow and other capitals that Beijing is trying to build its strategic influence and undermine theirs.

    China, with the second-largest global economy and military, is the “only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to do it,” the document says.

    Mao, speaking at a regular news briefing, said China was a “defender of the world order” and rejected “sensationalizing geopolitical conflicts and great power competition.”

    Mao criticized the “weaponization of economic and trade issues” after Yellen said Wednesday the United States was trying to reduce reliance on China and other Asian suppliers of semiconductors, electric vehicle batteries, solar panels and other technology.

    President Xi Jinping’s government is spending heavily to reduce its need for U.S. and other Western technology by developing its own creators of processor chips, artificial intelligence, aerospace and other know-how. Beijing is pressing Chinese companies to reduce reliance on global supply chains by using domestic vendors whenever possible, even if that increases costs.

    “We know the cost of Russia’s weaponization of trade as a tool of geopolitical coercion, and we must mitigate similar vulnerabilities to countries like China,” Yellen said in Washington.

    The United States should “abandon unilateralism and protectionism,” Mao said, and work with “the international community to maintain the security and smooth flow of the industrial and supply chain.”

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