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Leave Our Kids Alone supporter kills woman over Pride flag then fellow supporters lie about it [1]

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Date: 2023-09-12  

The self described "concerned parents" of the Leave Our Kids Alone movement have been pushing anti-LGBTQ+ hate in Southern California schools while illegally stripping LGBTQ+ students of their civil rights. They have instigated violent brawls at school board meetings alongside Proud Boys and told LGBTQ+ youth to hang themselves. Now: they're running cover for the man who fatally shot a woman for displaying a Pride flag at her store in Lake Arrowhead, California.

The shooter was identified by law enforcement as 27-year-old Travis Ikeguchi, a Republican supporting Christian nationalist who used anti-LGBTQ+ slurs and hate speech online and promoted the Leave Our Kids Alone movement by name. After news of the horrific murder went viral— right-wing school board candidates Jordan Henry and Jonathan Zachreson , two local leaders of the Leave Our Kids Alone movement, joined an online far-right disinformation campaign and pushed an AI-generated fake blog post falsely claiming that the victim of the Lake Arrowhead shooting had been killed by her brother.

Even after this baseless lie was debunked by law enforcement, Leave Our Kids Alone supporters continued to push the false claim— muddying the waters in conservative circles about what really happened with this anti-LGBTQ+ far-right hate crime and shooting. In doing this, the Leave Our Kids Alone supporters are directly assisting the deceased shooter in continuing to terrorize his intended victims.

These are not the actions of grassroots activists with sincere concerns. These are the actions of fascist provocateurs and disinformation agents who wish to tear down the existence of the LGBTQ+ community using violence and lies.

It's no accident that the anti-LGBTQ+ conspiracy theories, propaganda imagery, and lies commonly spread by the Leave Our Kids Alone movement is identical to what was on the shooter's social media profiles. The shooter was also active in the school board anti-LGBTQ+ activist scene: boasting online about getting blocked by local schools for his harassment regarding the same issues Leave Our Kids Alone has build a movement out of. He celebrated one of Leave Our Kids Aline's biggest wins in Southern California: an Orange Unified school district ruling to ban Pride flags in schools.

(My website includes archives of the Pride flag shooter’s posts discussed in this article and more)

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/12/2193000/-Leave-Our-Kids-Alone-supporter-kills-woman-over-Pride-flag-then-fellow-supporters-lie-about-it

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