Clay Aiken makes a chilling point about how Florida fails LGBTQ people

After a shooting at the gay nightclub Pulse killed 49 people in Orlando early Sunday morning, the state of Florida is in mourning — Gov. Rick Scott condemned the deaths as an "attack on all of us." Florida declared a state of emergency.

But while there are likely to be plenty of public statements on behalf of survivors of the shooting, if the survivors identify as LBGTQ, they still live in a state that doesn’t guarantee them basic protections. Clay Aiken, the American Idol runner-up and former congressional candidate, put it well:

Aiken’s words actually echo something that happened 43 years ago, after what is now the second-worst massacre of LGBTQ people in US history, the Upstairs Lounge nightclub arson in New Orleans. Among the injured was a teacher who "was fired while in critical care … after his school learned that he had been at the bar," Elizabeth Dias and Jim Downs wrote in Time magazine in 2013. The man later died. Other survivors refused to be publicly identified for fear of backlash.

A lot has changed since 1973. But most states, including Florida, still don't ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in housing, at work, or at school:

Violence against LGBTQ people has spurred activism in the past, just as other violence against marginalized groups has fed protests. If the Pulse shooting has similar effects, nondiscrimination laws could be a good place to start.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via