Owen Jones, an author and columnist for The Guardian and the New Statesman, walked out of a live TV interview on Sky News last night. Jones and host Mark Longhurst and another guest, Julia Hartley-Brewer were debating Omar Mateen‘s intent when he fired more than 100 bullets into a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, killing 49 people: was it primarily a homophobic attack or was it one carried out by a radical Islamic terrorist? (The answer is it was both.)
But Jones wasn’t having it when the Hartley-Brewer and Longhurst seemed to minimize the fact that this was an attack on the LGBT community, first and foremost.
“You can’t understand this because you’re not gay,” Jones said at one point to Longhurst. “I’m sorry. I just find this the most astonishing thing I’ve ever been involved in on live television,” he added.
“Everyone’s upset, but storming off a TV set…” said Hartley-Brewer as Jones walked away. Here’s the clip:
This morning, Jones Tweeted:
On Sky News last night, I realised how far some will go to ignore homophobia https://t.co/rJ9mD6fuyV
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) June 13, 2016