A brief history of attacks on US gay community
The latest gun attack at a gay club in Orlando, Florida is another example of violence against the LGBT community in the United States.
USA Today has compiled the major attacks on the LGBT community since 1973.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. June 12, 2016: A gunman opens fire in Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, killing approximately 50 people and sending 53 to the hospital.
December 31, 2013: Musab Masmari poured gasoline in a stairway at a decades-old gay nightclub, and lit it. There were about 750 people in the Seattle club for a New Year's Eve celebration at the time, but the fire was extinguished with no injuries. An associate of his "reported that Masmari confided in him that he 'burned a gay club' and that he did it because 'what these people are doing is wrong,'" an assistant U.S. attorney said in court documents. Masamari was sentenced to 10 years on federal arson charges.
March 1, 2009: Brothers Lawrence Henry Lewis and Lawrneil Henry Lewis and their cousin Alejandro Sam Gray hurled chunks of concrete at patrons of a gay bar in Galveston, Texas. One of the victims, Marc Bosaw, required twelve staples in his head.
September 22, 2000: Ronald Gay opened fire in a gay bar in Roanoke, Va., killing 43-year-old Danny Overstreet and injuring six others. Gay told police he didn't like being teased about his last name. Several of his sons had changed their last name. And his fifth ex-wife had a same-sex relationship before their marriage. Gay told authorities it was his mission to make all gays move to San Francisco, which he thought would end AIDS.
February 21, 1997: Eric Rudolph sets off a nail-laden explosive device at the Otherside Lounge, a nightclub in Atlanta with a mostly gay and lesbian clientele. The lounge was crowded with about 150 people when the device went off on a rear patio. Five people are wounded. Rudolph, better known for targeting the 1996 Summer Olympics, said he was striking back at a "morally corrupt government" that allows abortion and homosexuality.
June 24, 1973: An arsonist sets fire to the Upstairs Lounge, a gay bar in New Orleans' French Quarter, killing 32 people.
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