Greg McKendry, the first victim of the gunman who fired on congregants at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville on Sunday, was a beloved elder of the congregation and the foster father of a transgendered teen.

On Sunday, Jim David Adkisson went into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville and shot several congregants, killing one man on the spot and fatally wounding a woman from the Westide Unitarian Universalists congregation who died shortly after being taken to the hospital.

The 58-year-old gunman’s ex-wife, Liza Alexander of Powell, was a former long-time member of TVUUC, one congregant confirmed. Adkisson had threatened to “blow his wife’s brains out and then do the same to himself,” according to an order of protection granted by Anderson County Chancery Court in 2000.

The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville “has a long and rich history of taking stands for social justice which are aligned with our values and principles” and the congregation “has worked for desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women’s rights and gay rights” as well as for protection of the environment. “We have provided sanctuary for political refugees,” the ’social action news’ page of the church’s website declares. “We have fed the homeless.” In a video posted to YouTube entitled, “Voices of a Liberal Faith – Unitarian Universalists,” TVUUC members explain their open-minded, non-creedal spirituality.

It was apparently this commitment to a liberal faith tradition and to social justice that prompted Jim David Adkisson to label TVUUC as part of what he called the ‘liberal movement.’ The evidence now strongly suggests that hate was the motive for the crime. Adkisson had in his car a four-page handwritten note in which he blamed what he called ‘the liberal movement’ for his inability to get a job and had targeted the church because it had received some publicity regarding its ‘liberal stance.’ Knoxville police seized three books from Adkisson’s home, including “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television commentator Bill O’Reilly; “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder,” by radio talk show host Michael Savage; and “Let Freedom Ring,” by radio host Sean Hannity.

Adkisson “always had the attitude the government was trying to get him,” Carol Smallwood of Alice, Texas, told the Knoxville News Sentinel. “He disliked blacks, gays, anyone who was a different color or just different from him,” Smallwood added. “He’s a very intelligent man but he couldn’t get in the mainstream and hold a job.”

TVUUC is a welcoming congregation and hosts numerous LGBT groups, including the Knoxville chapter of P-FLAG and the Knoxville Monday Gay Men’s Group as well as the Spectrum Cafe, which “especially welcomes teens who: self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, or who are questioning their sexual or gender identity.” One of those teens was Taylor Bessette, a transgendered teenager who was a member of the cast of “Annie,” the musical being staged in a special performance by children at the time of the shooting. Bessette’s foster father, Greg McKendry, took her in a few months ago. Witnesses say that McKendry stepped in front of the gunman to protect others in the church. McKendry’s transgendered daughter called her foster father a hero.

On Monday evening, the Second Presbyterian Church — next door to the TVUUC, which is now a crime scene — held a candlelight vigil that drew hundreds in solidarity, including members of the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition, two of whom had actually been in the Unitarian church at the time of the shooting.

“We are churches that welcome all souls, not just some souls,” declared the Rev. William Sinkford at the vigil. “The Tennessee Valley and the Westside churches and Unitarian Universalists are not going to change living our religion that way. We simply are not,” added Sinkford, the president of the Unitarian Universalist Association. “We need to be willing to stand up and stand on the side of that larger love,” affirmed Sinkford. The UUA, which is based in Boston, is the association of the 1,041 self-governing congregations in the United States and around the world, and was the first Protestant denomination to come out in favor of same-sex marriage. Because each congregation is self-governing, it is up to individual congregations as to whether to identify themselves as ‘affirming,’ but a large number are, and many host Interweave (Unitarian Universalists for LGBT Concerns) chapters for LGBT members of their congregation.

The rampage in Knoxville has attracted national attention, generating coverage in the New York Times (“Hate for Liberals and Gay People Drove Gunman, Police Say”) and the Washington Post (“‘A Whole Lotta Ugly’ in Church Shooting”), which focused on the hatred that motivated the shooting rampage.

in the wake of the tragedy, Knoxville Mayor Bill Haslam is being asked to acknowledge the city’s LGBT community, the Knoxville News Sentinel is reporting. “This is the time for you to actually and sincerely stand by us, as well as this tragedy’s victims, their families and all the citizens of Knoxville who value basic human rights and liberties,” wrote Gary Elgin, former director of the Rainbow Community Awareness Project, in an e-mail message to Haslam. “This is the time for you, when called upon, to answer and step up and be counted as our mayor as well.”

In response, the mayor issued a statement saying that “It is often easy to make these tragic events, which are far too frequent, about the community in which they occur. Knoxville is a caring, compassionate city where diverse viewpoints are shared and respected. Every person, regardless of race, religion, age, sex, or sexual orientation is a person of human dignity and a valued member of our community.”

If any good comes from this tragedy, it may well be in the tardy but welcome official recognition of the LGBT community in Knoxville as well as in the recognition that hate speech directed at ‘liberals’ and ‘gays’ can lead to acts of hate that kill.