Quad Cities LGBTQ group reacts to Colorado nightclub shooting

MOLINE, Ill. (KWQC) - Quad Cities LGBTQ advocacy groups reacted to the aftermath of the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs over the weekend.

Clock Inc is an LGBT+ community center in Moline. It offers everything from group trainings and workshops to peer mentorship programs.

As discrimination against the community continues to pop up in headlines, the group’s director of operations, Adam Peters, wants the Quad Cities to know that the center is still open and willing to serve the LGBTQ Community.

“Going into work at an LGBTQ center, you kind of wonder, like, is there a target on me?” Peters said. “If I worried about that every single day, I wouldn’t go to work ... It’s just horrific what we’ve seen out of Colorado, and we want to make sure that everyone knows that we’re here and we’re standing with you.”

The incident hits close to home, as over the summer Clock Inc received threats because of a drag event they were planning to host. Peters said the country needs to realize LGBTQ people are everywhere and are human.

“We’ve just got to band together and just kind of realize, we need to educate people,” Peters said. “We need to make sure that this toxic misinformation that surrounds the LGBTQ community right now goes away and is combated.”

Other LGBTQ businesses in the QC also responded to the events. In a brief statement to TV6, Mary’s on 2nd, a prominent gay bar in Downtown Davenport called for better mental health options.

“We are all in shock in this senseless tragedy, and again a mass shooting,” an official with the bar said. “You’re not safe anywhere, and then it turns out to be a hate crime .... We all are grieving with our brothers and sisters.”

Staff members there are in the preliminary steps of organizing a fundraiser for the victims and their families. Updates for the event can be found on the business’s Facebook page.

Several lawmakers posted statements on social media in reaction to the tragedy, including congressman-elect Eric Sorensen, who will become Illinois’s first openly-gay member of congress when he’s sworn in in January.

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