Louisville, Kentucky might be best known as the hometown of Muhammad Ali, or as the town that hosts the Kentucky Derby. My social media check-in at Louisville attracted a comment from some wag - ‘I hope you’ve brought a bible and a gun’.
But it turns out I didn’t need to as Louisville has plenty of both, and I was about to meet avid believers of the Almighty and the Second Amendment.
Only a few days earlier, I’d been at the Pride Parade in West Hollywood. A strange grey morning, mere hours after the worst shooting in the modern history of the USA had taken place at a gay bar 4,000 miles away.
Hastily-made ‘We are Orlando’ signs punctuated the usual processions of rainbows, chaps and sequins while black helicopters circled and armoured vehicles parked at the perimeter.
49 people died after Omar Mateen opened fire at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Source: SBS Dateline
A friend who is a 40-year veteran of LA Pride told me that he thought ‘a lot of straight people have stayed away. It’s quiet and there aren’t many families.’
Being based in the US, I have to admit a certain amount of desensitisation when it comes to gun violence. It’s so pervasive, you just keep your head down and assume you’re playing a numbers game to stay safe.
The United States has 112 guns per 100 people, and many people’s reaction to a shooting tragedy is to shrug their shoulders and say ‘oh dear’. But the LGBT community in Louisville wouldn’t be doing that over the next few days.
Kentucky is sweltering at this time of year. The humidity can make it feel like you’re wading through the thick air.
First stop was ‘Play’, an LGBT (and straight) dance club with a logo, colouring and set-up eerily similar to ‘Pulse’, the Orlando club at the centre of the massacre.
Traditionally Pride weekend is the biggest at the club - but nobody’s sure if people will come out in solidarity, or stay at home in fear. The club has tens of cameras and panic buttons, and even employs uniformed, armed police officers to stand sentry during opening hours.
Dean films at Louisville Pride, which attracted a record turnout a week after the attacks in Orlando. Source: SBS Dateline
But, on this Thursday afternoon as owner Todd hangs rainbow ribbons and Chinese lanterns, he confides that he’s genuinely unsure whether this is enough to put people at ease. Todd knows Pulse, the drag queens he employs performed there regularly. Everyone’s feeling like the events in Orlando were way too close for comfort.
Any fears are allayed the following day, as the Pride Parade has a record turnout. Fear has turned to defiance and solidarity, but for veterans of the LGBT advocacy scene it’s a mixed blessing.
Chris Hartman from the Fairness Campaign explains to me that this sort of sympathy and cohesion needs to be harnessed long-term for a difference to be made.
Outside Louisville, the rest of Kentucky has few laws to protect LGBT people from discrimination and violence - and half of the rest of America is the same way.
It was an interesting whirlwind trip around the area, and Kentucky provided a good cross-section of the opinions of a deeply divided country.
It seemed to take a while for the conservative side of the political spectrum to work out how to place this tragedy. I mean, honestly, it must be tough to know how to react when a sector of the population that you don’t like and want to vilify, lashes out so spectacularly against another sector of the population that you also don’t like.
Presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump’s first Tweet started with ‘Thanks for the congrats…'
That sums it up for those guys I guess. And we met a few of them.
But black and white, or even rainbow, political assertions are a dime-a-dozen in a post-Orlando United States. After spending some time in Kentucky, I came to the conclusion that tragedy only serves to intensify existing beliefs.
Advances in gay rights, such as marriage equality, have prompted a concerted backlash by people like Frank Simon from the American Family Association. Source: SBS Dateline
Gun lovers call for more guns to solve the problem, while those that believe in gun control run to their corner and call for action.
Islamophobes intensify their fear, hatred and suspicion. But the really interesting thing was the LGBT reaction.
I hope these tragic events can be a catalyst for a wider discussion of the myriad of issues that plague that community and the US at the moment, but what I saw over the last week makes me fear that events like this cause far more division than they do cohesion.
