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Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick posted this tweet the morning of the Orlando tragedy, later deleting it. Austin American-Statesman reporter Jonathan Tilove concluded it's unreasonable to conclude the message was posted to blame the shooting victims.
An early-morning tweet by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on the day of the shooting rampage at a gay club in Orlando struck many as out of bounds.
Patrick deleted his tweet four hours later, citing hateful comments. The Houston Republican also said his quotation of a Biblical verse hadn’t been posted to react to the Orlando tragedy. Rather, he said, it had been scheduled to post days before as he’d previously set up Sunday morning posts relating to his Christian beliefs.
We did not fact-check Patrick’s defense. Yet Jonathan Tilove, chief political writer for the Austin American-Statesman, fielded replies from Patrick and a Patrick consultant and did his own look at past Patrick tweets before writing that it’s not reasonable to conclude, based on available information, that Patrick reacted to the deaths by posting the verse stating a man "reaps what you sow."
Read Tilove’s detailed analysis on the American-Statesman’s First Reading blog.
Our Sources
News blog post, "Twitter makes imbeciles of us all: On Anthony Weiner, Donald Trump and the backlash against Dan Patrick’s Bible verse," First Reading blog, Jonathan Tilove, Austin American-Statesman, June 13, 2016
