Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal earlier this month where he complained about the media coverage surrounding November’s Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, a hate crime at an LGBTQ bar that left five people dead and 18 injured.
In the piece, which can be read here, Aquila claimed that media outlets were unfairly blaming the Catholic Church for its role in promoting homophobic and transphobic rhetoric. However, while in the article Aquila said that the Church does not discriminate against gay or trans people, Aquila made homophobic and transphobic comments.
“Our critics charge that the Catholic Church is discriminating against those who identify as gay or transgender,” Aquila wrote. “But it isn’t discriminatory to tell someone you think his beliefs don’t conform to nature—it’s an act of charity.”
Yesterday in a radio interview with Dan Caplis on 630 KHOW, Aquila defended his piece and claimed that his work speaking out against gay and trans people is equivalent to preventing a child from putting their hand on a hot stove.
“While we [the Catholic Church] accept everyone where they are at, that does not mean that we affirm their behaviors,” Aquila said. “And there is a vast difference between accepting and affirming. It would be like letting a child who wants to put their hand on a hot stove, not warning that child or grabbing that child’s hand, and explaining to the child why it’s not good to touch that hot stove.”
Listen to Aquila’s full answer below:
LGBTQ advocates say that anti-LGBTQ rhetoric — which has been running rampant across Colorado — played a part in motivating the Club Q shooting.
Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, released a statement after the shooting pointing to the connection between hateful rhetoric and violence.
“You can draw a straight line from the false and vile rhetoric about LGBTQ people spread by extremists and amplified across social media, to the nearly 300 anti-LGBTQ bills introduced this year, to the dozens of attacks on our community like this one,” Kate Ellis said.
Aquila has a lengthy history of discrimination and hateful rhetoric against the LGBTQ community. Aquila’s record includes promoting conversion therapy, advocating against including LGBTQ-related discussion during sex education classes, and urging Catholic schools to not enroll students who identify as trans or gender non-binary.
