The Pulse bar in Orlando, Fla., where a mass shooting killed 50 on June 12, 2016
A horrible incident took place in Orlando Saturday night at a bar. It was a mass shooting perpetrated by a guy of Middle-Eastern descent who called the cops to tell them that he pledged allegiance to ISIL before storming on innocent people with an AR-15 killing 50 -including the shooter- and injuring 53, the number may change as time goes on. Oh! And the venue happened to be a gay bar. That’s the basic message from media outlets.
Yes, all of the above happened. The real issue, though, is being washed over: homophobia.
Most terrorist attacks are planned based on the number of casualties and/or the symbolism of the venue. This is why the Paris attacks targeted a music venue and a soccer game. This is why Timothy McVeigh chose the Oklahoma Federal Building, and Al Qaeda the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. These targets fit neatly into the definition of an average terrorist attacks.
But this is not what happened in Orlando.
The killer (who I refuse to name) drove over 100 miles to reach the venue. He surveilled the bar prior to the attack. The population chosen was chosen for a reason. The reason being undiluted homophobia. And this is what is being ignored by the media.
The focus has been on the Islamic State. Yes, the killer had some very loose ties to the heinous organization, but IS was nothing more than an inspiration to commit the attack, and not the reason. According to his father, the killer was not religious. ISIL was created to create a new caliphate based on strict sharia law, thus the name Islamic State. Not only that, but the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria! They defined the region where they want to create their caliphate. A non-religious person does not fit into this definition, but anyone who hates those who ISIL hates can draw inspiration from this lunatic group.
Our two potential Commanders in Chief also made similar declarations. Donald Trump again talked against Muslims, and Hillary Clinton invoked her hawkish self, talking about bombing ISIS and about assault weapons. So no, basically no one is talking about homophobia in depth, and when homophobia is mentioned it’s related to ISIL and not to American culture.
There hasn’t been any mention of your typical haters. A preacher praised the killer, people posted innumerable congratulations to the killer and flat out said that he didn’t kill any innocent people, and Pat Robertson, the gift that keeps on giving, said that LGBTQs and Muslims should kill ourselves off and to wait on the sidelines while we do so, while others said that we brought it upon ourselves, and let’s not forget Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick’s beautiful tweet quoting the Bible. (His office later said that it was a pre-scheduled tweet that was not related to Orlando and it was taken down.)
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community are targeted worldwide. There is no safe place for us, only safer places. We aren’t welcome anywhere; people are asked to tolerate us as if we were annoying flies buzzing around rather than human beings. Full acceptance is hard.
Many LGBT people are rejected by our families. Many others are conditionally accepted, or just tolerated. When we are young, many are kicked out of our homes. Imagine yourself for a second being 12-years old and finding yourself on the streets with no money, no resources, nothing other than the disdain of others.
According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, LGBTQ youth are over represented in the homeless youth population:
20% of homeless youth are LGBT[Q]. In comparison, the general youth population is only 10% LGBT[Q].
- National Coalition for the Homeless
It may get better once one becomes an adult, but that’s not always the case. We get beat up, raped and killed. In the past few years we have experienced a dramatic increase in deaths of transgender women, especially transgender women of color, and within this group, mostly black trans women.
There is a sense that it’s OK to mistreat and kill us, especially our transgender sisters. In 2016 alone, we had 10 deaths already.
We can still be fired for being who we are, and so-called religious freedom legislation being passed by many states is nothing more than an excuse to target us.
Our youth is not allowed to openly be themselves at school. Sadly, this is not limited to bullying, but actual school policies and the behavior of teachers and school officials.
More recently, a concerted attack is coming from the right, especially from those whom I call Xtians -people who call themselves Christians but never take into account what Jesus actually said, and who instead use the Bible to justify their oppression of women, children, and anyone else they don’t like. Xtians stopped trying to push a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being only between one man and one woman. Instead, they are focusing on local efforts to ensure that people aren’t safe. Most of these legislative efforts are masked as “religious freedom” legislation.
“Religious freedom” has somehow become a tool to impose one’s religion on others, thus denying the rest of us our freedom from their religion. The Family Research Council supports and often spearheads these efforts to enable people to discriminate against gays. And they make no apologies either. On their web site, the organization clearly states its disdain for us.
We oppose the vigorous efforts of homosexual activists to demand that homosexuality be accepted as equivalent to heterosexuality in law, in the media, and in schools.
- Family Research Council
These blatantly homophobic incursions in society have escalated to the point that we are not even allowed to use public restrooms!
Dubbed as a means to protect women and girls from sexual predators, bills like the one passed in North Carolina only seek to police other people’s gender. The Family Research Council does not mince words on the issue. The agenda is solely to force people to be the way the FRC wants them to be.
There has never ever been an incident where a transwoman has preyed on women and girls in a bathroom. Every time a predator has entered a women’s bathroom, he was wearing men’s clothes. It’s worth mentioning that many boys have been sexually assaulted and raped in men’s bathrooms. Who is protecting these children from male predators? No one because these bills are not about protection at all, but about hurting trans women.
These women suffer bitter abuse, bigotry and discrimination in many parts of their lives. Some transgender women are gay. Some are not. None are “adult men.” And being transgender is not a perversion.
- The New York Times
And let’s not forget our dear Dan Patrick who wants to persecute our trans youth in schools by openly defying the federal government!
Some of our national leaders are showing strong support for the LGBT community at this time. Yet, all come back to Islam or ISIL. Our tragedy is being used to vilify Muslims, to support military action in the Middle East, and to show how right they were for “over 25 years.”
This is simply shameful. It’s disgraceful. It’s disgusting.
Our national leaders are talking about the Orlando shooter in a way that fits neatly into their anti-ISIL and anti-gun narrative.
And here’s the kicker! The same day of the Orlando shootings, another hater (who also shall not be named) almost did the exact same thing in Los Angeles. Fortunately, he was thwarted and he didn’t kill anyone, but why aren’t we talking about this guy’s motivations? Why aren’t we talking about his ties to white supremacists?
What we need to do as a nation is ask ourselves why a non-religious man of Afghan descent who was born and raised in the US would think it’s OK to shoot down dozens of people just because they are gay? Why is a man of European descent thought of doing the exact same thing? Actually, given that he was going to L.A. Pride, he may have killed even more lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and queers than the shooter in Orlando.
The thing these men share in common is their hatred of gays, yet we are not talking at all about the root of this evil.
Why?
