Out comedian-actress Lea DeLaria
weighed in on Sunday's attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando during
the New York premiere of the fourth season of Netflix's Orange Is
The New Black.
Sunday's attack left 49 people dead and
dozens injured. Several of the wounded continue to cling to life.
“When you are a queer individual, as
I am, and you want to go someplace where you feel safe, you go to the
local bar, you go to the gay bar,” DeLaria
told the AP on Thursday.
“It's where we have community. It's
where we have our culture. It's where we feel safe.”
“That was stolen from every LGBT
person in the world on Sunday morning,” she said.
DeLaria added that she was heartened by
the response to the tragedy, which she called “amazing.”
“That the president of the United
States took his time to remind everyone that we are human beings.
That is an amazing thing,” an emotional DeLaria said.
“If we could just stop teaching
people to hate, and if we could just stop selling weapons of war, we
could have a much better society,” she added.