On July 27th Jim Adkisson walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church with a loaded shotgun and proceeded to shoot several congregants, killing two in the process.

His manifesto indicated that he chose the UU church because of their connections to the “liberal movement” and their support for “gays.”

On cue, many so-called conservatives depoliticized this shooting, implying that Adkisson was just “crazy” instead of recognizing his painfully obvious selection of targets for explicitly political and ideological reasons.

Regardless of our party affiliation, we can all see that this outcome is a natural consequence of a decade-plus of the right-wing demonization of liberals as traitors and terrorists, right?

Of course Adkisson was “crazy”- sane people don’t walk into a church and start shooting – but the content of his craziness came courtesy of the likes of Limbaugh, Coulter, and O’Reilly.

Of course these people want to depoliticize the shooting; to do otherwise would be to admit to being ideological accomplices and to take responsibility for their inflammatory, hate-filled rhetoric.

Hopefully those who make their livelihoods out of demonizing “liberals” and “gays,” the companies who sponsor them, and their devoted fan-bases will reflect on the lives taken on Sunday and mend the error of their ways.

Alas, I’m not holding my breath.