No sooner did the reports of the Orlando massacre begin to hit the airwaves than the accusations began flying: This is the work of Christian hate groups!

Yes, “Early on Sunday before the world learned the identity and religion of the man who murdered up to 50 people in an Orlando, Florida, gay bar, a ‘law enforcement expert’ for NBC went on the air on MSNBC and hinted that the shooter was probably a Christian and a member of a ‘white hate group.’”

Of course, that narrative was immediately abandoned as soon as the facts came out: The mass murderer was a Muslim who pledged allegiance to ISIS.

But that has not stopped others from saying that Christians are still complicit in this atrocity, alleging that our words have helped to create an atmosphere that demeans and dehumanizes gays, thereby leading to their murder.

CNN commentator Sally Kohn tweeted out, “You either support the dignity & equal treatment of all LGBT people or you support their systematic dehumanization.” And, “How about we just blame hateful anti-gay extremism, in any religion, in every form it takes?!” And, “Throughout history, extremist groups have used religion to preach and rationalize hate.”

So according to this logic, if you don’t embrace same-sex marriage, you support the “systematic dehumanization” of gays and are to blame for the bloodshed in Orlando.

ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio stated, “You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate.”

On Facebook, gay activist Matt Comer wrote, “You helped cause this massacre. Your anti-LGBTQ theology assisted in helping others, including the Orlando shooter, in seeing each of our precious LGBTQ lives as dispensable and worthy of death. … How ’bout you stop your anti-queer theology that supports our death and despair, huh?”

In response someone posted, “Please try and understand we are all marked for death by the Libertarian Christofascists. The LGBTQ community is merely being targeted first because it represents the most visible form of resistance to their authority.”

There you have it: “Christofascists” have marked all gays for death — and this is sincerely believed.

Similar sentiments were expressed by commenters on the JoeMyGod.com website.

Also on this site, official statements from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Lamda Legal were quoted. Although more measured, on some level they also blamed the Orlando slaughter in  part on those who oppose “gay rights.”

In Canada, a headline read, “After Orlando, time to recognize that anti-gay bigotry is not religious freedom: Neil Macdonald.” The contents of the article were chilling: “organized religion must reflect on helping shape a culture that will this week have led to 50 funerals in Florida. It’s not just the extremists who want to deprive gays of human rights.”

Over on ThinkProgress.org, the headline to Zack Ford’s article read, “Conservatives Try To Scapegoat Islam To Avoid Responsibility For Perpetuating Anti-LGBT Violence.” And a headline on the flagship gay website Advocate.com declared, “Orlando Is an Extension of the Marriage Battle, Bathroom Wars.”

It’s important, then, that levelheadedness and truth prevail in the midst of these accusations, especially since this kind of rhetoric can lead to its own violence, as already seen when a gay man, Floyd Conklin, attempted to carry out his own massacre at the conservative Christian FRC headquarters, inspired by the anti-Christian rhetoric of the SPLC.

Here are the Simple Facts

First, if there was not a single Christian on the earth today, radical Muslims would want to kill gays, and when ISIS throws gays off buildings in Syria, this is no more connected to Christianity than was the Orlando massacre.

Second, there are tens of millions conservative Christians in America, many of whom own guns, yet they are not trying to mow down gays in the name of Jesus. That’s because the teaching of Jesus urge love for neighbors, enemies and a recognition that we are all sinners and all made in the image of God. There is no logical connection between “I believe marriage is the union of one man and one woman,” and, “Let’s go kill gays.”

Atheist Hemant Mehta claims that there actually is a connection, arguing that when Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association (AFA) says, “We want homosexuals helped. Muslims want them dead,” that this is “the same bigoted mindset that may have led people like alleged shooter Omar Mateen to target gay individuals.”

But to believe Mehta’s claim stretches credulity. On a daily basis I see a steady stream of vicious hatred expressed by atheists and LGBT’s toward Christians — including death wishes and even death threats — simply for holding to biblical teaching.

Not only so, but worldwide, far more Christians are being butchered and tortured and kidnapped and forced into exile than are gay men and women — primarily at the hands of radical Muslims.

This does not for a moment minimize the losses suffered in Orlando, nor does it minimize the terror of gays being hung in Iran or brutally executed in Syria. It simply reminds us that both Christians and homosexuals are victims of radical Islam.

Third, it is true that there are fanatical “Christian” voices celebrating the Orlando massacre, like the Westboro Baptist Church, with its tiny, hate-filled membership, or a Phoenix pastor, whose anti-Jewish tirades are also well-known. But they barely even represent a fringe minority, so minuscule are they in numbers, and even they do not call for Christians to take up arms against gays.

More importantly, they are universally repudiated by Christian leaders.

Fourth, there are an increasing number of reports that Mateen himself was gay — from an ex-wife, from old friends, from gay men who met him through a gay dating app, through patrons at the Orlando night club who say they saw him there numerous times — adding yet another bizarre aspect to the massacre.

Was this the act of, not just a Muslim, but of a gay Muslim?

What if headlines read, “Gay man kills 49 gays and wounds 53 others”? Or, “Gay man involved in the worst mass murder in American history”?

And how are Christians to be implicated in that scenario?

The bottom line is that there is more than enough hatred in the world today, much of it leading to outright violence. We should therefore place the blame where it belongs rather than falsely accuse those who lovingly differ with homosexual practice.

For a Christian message to LGBT Americans, see here.