ITEM PHOTO BY OWEN O’ROURKE
The final part of the vigil at St. Stephen’s Church in Lynn to honor those killed in Orlando.
BY GAYLA CAWLEY
LYNN — Following the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, where a hate crime killed 49 and wounded 53 more at Pulse Orlando, gay youth and their friends found a safe place to heal Tuesday at St. Stephen’s Memorial Church.
“I kind of just came here to feel today,” said Camille San Gabriel.
The 18-year-old Lynn resident is a gay member of the Episcopal Church’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth group, Be You. She said the event was in response to the Orlando shooting, and was intended to give people a “space to just be.”
Two dozen teenagers and a few adults gathered on the church lawn to share their feelings after the attack. They read the victims’ names around a rainbow flag at half-mast.
Rev. Jane Gould said the flag’s position doesn’t mean they are any less proud of who they are.
“It means our hearts are broken,” she said.
Dakota Shatto, 17, of Lynn, said she is gay and cried when she heard the news Sunday morning. By connecting the attack to ISIS, she said people are trying to take away that it was a hate crime. She couldn’t understand how anyone could attack a community who did nothing but dance.
“I feel like other spaces aren’t as safe to feel these feelings as right here,” Shatto said.
But it wasn’t just gays and lesbians who gathered at St. Stephen’s.
Alyssa Peguero, 18, of Lynn, is straight and said there is so much work to be done with LGBT allies. She said homosexuality doesn’t have to be an abomination.
“We’re going to gather everyone together and tell them that they count,” said Jason Cruz, a Be You adult leader.
Eighteen-year-old Selena Garraud of Lynn, who is unsure of her sexual orientation, said she was devastated by the attacks.
“It just makes me upset that someone would feel justified in taking someone else’s life for just being who they were made to be,” she said.
Gould said it wasn’t an accident that the shooting happened in June, LGBT Pride Month. Boston Pride held its parade last weekend.
“Boston could have been the target just as easily as Orlando,” she said.
Gayla Cawley can be reached at gcawley@itemlive.com. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley