Jenna Ellis, former senior legal counsel to Donald Trump, has drawn outrage following her hateful commentary on Saturday’s mass shooting at Colorado’s Club Q gay nightclub.
Five people were killed and at least 18 others injured in the Colorado Springs attack, which came amid a campaign by conservative media outlets and politicians to demonize transgender people and drag queens and pass hostile legislation targeting the LGBTQ community as a whole. The fear campaign coincided with a spike in harassment, threats and violence against LGBTQ people. The suspect in the murders is charged with murder and hate crimes.
On an episode of her podcast this week, Ellis suggested that the victims of the shooting face “eternal damnation” for not being Christian in her eyes.
“Even more tragic than an untimely death is that for the five people who were murdered that night in the nightclub, there is no evidence that they were Christians,” said the far-right lawyer. “And so, supposing they had not accepted the truth of the gospel of Christ and established Jesus Christ as the lord of their lives, they are now reaping the consequences of eternal damnation.”
Also a right-wing media pundit, Ellis played a top role in Trump’s failed legal bid to overturn the 2020 presidential election and most recently served as legal counsel to Pennsylvania extremist Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, who lost. Her history of anti-LGBTQ rhetoric goes back years.
For example, in a 2017 Facebook post recorded by Media Matters, she wrote, “Whether homosexuals are nice, wise people, or misunderstood, or mean, is not the issue. … Sin is always sin, even when nice people commit it.”
And after the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, which killed 49 people and injured 53, she expressed disappointment that “conservatives endorse the LGBT agenda.”
“The shooting in Orlando was absolutely horrific and tragic. But the response to this tragedy should not be to embrace and advocate for gay rights,” she said after the deadly attack on the gay nightclub.
Earlier this week, she criticized the Colorado Springs Police Department for including all of the Club Q victims’ pronouns when sharing their identities.
In the aftermath of the attack, right-wing figures have refuted allegations that their rhetoric helped create an environment for anti-LGBTQ violence, instead accusing critics of “politicizing” the tragedy and doubling down on their false stories that defame the community and its allies.
Ellis was harshly condemned online on Wednesday after clips of her Club Q comments were circulated.
In response to the outcry, Ellis insisted she has nothing against gays and transgender people, but anyone she doesn’t consider Christian enough.
“I am worried about EVERYONE and EVERYONE who is not saved,” she tweeted. “The point is not that these people were gay/trans, but that there is no evidence that they were saved. You all need the church.’
