Nashville Gay Bar Owners say they feel threatened by a Picture of a Gun on pro-Trump ‘LGBT’ flyers
Some members of the gay community in Nashville, Tennessee, think that flyers featuring the Statue of Liberty, a gun, a beer, and President Donald Trump’s face are a threat.
A … threat?
Yes. A threat.
According to WTVF-TV, at least four Nashville-area gay bars received the flyers, and some people are calling the content of the flyers “targeted hate mail.”
Melvin Brown, the owner of Nashville’s Stirrup, said that his establishment was one that received the offending postcard-style mailer.
The postcard, as you can see above, follows a red, white, and blue theme and features the letters “LGBT,” which, in this case, appear to stand for “Liberty,” “Guns,” “Beer,” and “Trump.”
Brown said that the photo of the gun was especially chilling.
“When you put a picture of an assault rifle on there — which was used in the Pulse shooting — and you mail it to every LGBT bar in Nashville, that is coming from a hateful place,” Brown said. “To say that it’s disturbing is an understatement.”
Brown was referring to the 2016 mass killing of at least 49 victims at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
The postcard’s front has a “MAGA” stamp on it and a return address that locates to an empty Nashville lot.
Brown said that he feels the flyers are tied to the upcoming midterm elections, although the mailer does not appear to affiliate itself with a particular political party or a candidate.
“The midterms are right around the corner and I think somebody is trying to incite a reaction,” Brown explained.
Anything else?
Brown also spoke to NBC News, where he expounded on his feelings that the “disturbing” mailer was sent for a reason.
“We live in a post-Pulse world in the LGBTQ community, especially in the bar scene,” Brown explained. “To see somebody send a postcard that had a picture of the weapon used in one of the deadliest assaults in this nation’s history, and one that happened at an LGBTQ bar, and to send that image to LGBTQ bars, to me is not a coincidence.”
Chris Sanders, who is executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project, said the mailers were sent to intimidate, and suggested that the mailers could be politically motivated, since some gay bars in the area host voter registration drives.
“This has a very aggressive tone about it,” Sanders warned. “It doesn’t use many words, but it uses a lot of images I think are meant to threaten us. The community’s message back is, ‘Yes this is frightening, but we’re going to turn out and vote regardless.’”
A spokesperson for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department said that while the department is aware of the incident, there is no open investigation at the time of this writing. The spokesperson noted that extra officers were dispatched to patrol the areas in which gay bars are located.
