LGBT News Mass Shooting at Orlando Gay Nightclub

This whole thing hurts so bad....physically. I don't know what to think at all. Shootings have always hit me hard..but this one really burns...

 

Because it made sense to people at the time. They didn't have knowledge to make sense of the world as we do today, so some came up with a way to explain. That is where all creation myths begin.
These days its used more as a way to explain the unknown after death and to give us hope that all good and bad deeds will be judged. That there is a divine order.

Religion in and of itself is not bad. As someone else mentioned, it is more of a guideline on how one should live their life. Most religions preach love and acceptance and peace. But then you add the human element and things beging to turn for the worst. Because a few would want to force their ideals on to others, and a few small and weak minded agree and spread it as well. Its not just religion that does, look at politics after all.

I don't blame religion for much. Religion is the scapegoat often used by those who know they are in the wrong but don't want to appear so.

 

all this hate not just for the LGBT community but for the rest too is horrible, when all these tragedies will end?

 

Just an update for everyone...

The guy who does my mom's nails is a good friend of hers and he was at the night club on the shooting. He is dead. She said he posted a picture on Facebook when he arrived at the club and that was the last thing they saw from him on Facebook. My mom called and texted him like crazy but he didn't answer his phone. Later on we found out he died. A friend of mines from work lost 3 of his friends 2 shot dead the other is in a serious coma.

I texted him this morning to see how he was holding up but he hasn't answered back yet. I was told they would he holding a vigil for the 2 mall employees who work upstairs who were killed. It's very sad day for all of us. The streets surrounding Pulse have all been shut down pending police and FBI investigation so there is a lot of detours. I go right by Pulse on my way to work everyday but today and yesterday were both a different story. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we go through this tough times.

Also the guy who made headlines for texting his mom saying I love you mommy in the bathroom has also been confirmed dead.

 

Because it was an appealing lie designed to control populations to live a lifestyle the way a handful people whom lived hundreds of years ago wanted people to live. People followed because it gave stability, a purpose of existence, and a promise of a "happy lifestyle" after death e.g. heaven if you're 'good'. In summary this is the basic teaching of most religions:
1 'good' man + 1 'good' woman in a stable relationship with a daily/weekly dose of religious idealistic reinforcement + children = "A sustainable happy lifestyle".
Therefore "attack any 'evil' person whom contradicts this way of life and the religion will live on indefinitely".

Good people who stray from this way of thinking stray from what the religion was originally intended to do. The consequence of this is it begins to die out (i.e Christianity) while the highly anti-LGBT religions continue to rise (Islam).

 

Very sorry to hear that! Hope your friends and family are staying strong. I can't imagine what it would be like if something like that happened in my community. Please consider the support section of this forum if you need any help! There's many people here for you

 

50 shot in Orlando, the Nazi's, contempt for Muslims - a reflection

Hate, a reflection. (warning, graphic material)

In my late 20s I stood at my first Nazi fire squad wall. (I was hitchhiking through Europe) I felt the depressions in the granite rock wall left by rifle bullets. The info sign near the wall said the ditch at the base of the wall was for the bodies to fall into and the blood to pool. I stepped back from the wall and fainted.

I never understood how Hitler could rally a country behind him. Not until recently. It's called HATE.

The shooter of ~100 plus LGBT people pledged elegance to ISIS. It seems (preliminary theory) Omar Marteen's only connection to ISIS is hate.

I will remind people ISIS was created by the United States of America. Why, how? Hate. (Well ya, George W Bush had something to do with it too.)

From Europe I traveled to the Middle East. While there I was almost killed by a terrorist bomb. Upon seeing me after the blast, a Muslim man hugged me and kissed the top of my head. I imagine he said to me in Arabic (or Turkish or ?) it would be alright. Imagine a Muslim giving comfort to a then Christian? Why? Love.

Let us not America join the paths of two people, Hitler and Omar, spewing hate to the world. I've found Muslim's to be very compassionate and loving, treating people humanly when treated fairly and with love.

(Disclaimer: I love my ECs anonymity. Some facts change slightly so as to not be identified to the world.)

 

It behooves us in this time of grief to set aside discussion of religion or politics.

This terrorist was neither religious (his ex-wife said as much) nor was he a politician. If we fall into the trap of discussing these issues in this context, we diminish the enormity of what happened and we stray into what the terrorists want us to discuss. We risk elevating this monstrosity, and the ones who perpetrated this, into political and religious realms that should be off limits to them.

Let us focus on the victims and their loved ones...for the time being, that really is all that matters.

 

From my viewpoint, it'll never end. Or at least not anytime soon.

Everywhere in the world hatred has festered unchecked, and now I really do think it's much too late.

As for this tragedy, I feel it's goes much, much deeper than that bastard claiming to carry out the attack in the name of ISIS. Many terrorists are playing the ISIS card as a means to justify their own vendettas and hates.

 

I'm a mess right now. Went to Zaxbys to get some food before work just now and they have a picture of one of the employees who worked there with a message about how he's in hesven. I asked the cashier who he was and she said he was killed in the shooting but he worked here. I literally lost it and started to sob. Told the lady behind me to go order ahead of me while I composed myself. I have to work a full 9 hour shift starting at 1:30 I don't know how I'll do it but I'll manage somehow.

 

I don't feel that it will end either. Every day I wonder when I will get a CNN alert on my phone about the next mass shooting, bombing, or terrorist attack. They just keep coming and many of them seem to be getting worse and worse. One of these days there's going to be another 9/11--another massive attack where 3,000 people are killed. I just hope it doesn't happen any time soon, but every time I get the news alerts, I wonder if it will be the one.

And ISIS is an incredibly easy card to play since they hate just about everyone who isn't them. The fact is that anyone who harbors any kind of violent hatred (and best of all, is from a Muslim family) can justify it by appealing ISIS--that is what ISIS wants. Those are the types of people they look for.

One thing's for certain: Trumpian anti-Muslim sentiment does not help. It is only going to increase the number of potential ISIS recruits.

 

This really hurts my heart. Shootings are always horrible and sad but this one really hurt me. I feel like I was personally involved. It also really annoys me that this incident brought out a lot of anti-gay people saying how those 50 people died because they were gay and God intended them to die. :tears:

 

I don't support the "ban Muslims" policy in the slightest. It is unenforceable, unethical and only going to cause further tensions amongst communities.

HOWEVER, as a gay person I am absolutely sick, ABSOLUTELY SICK of the hand-wringing amongst both some liberals and some self-labelled "moderate Muslims" who immediately ring-fence this as "just an extremist" issue, that they are in no way shape or form accountable for.

No, that is NOT the truth. You do not have to be an extremist to contribute to extremism. If you go to a church, synagogue, mosque (or even any non-religious group arena) and preach any form of "anti" sentiment you are part of the problem and blood is on your hands (whether you are aware or intended this or not).

You see it takes a negative belief to create extremism. If you convince a room of 1000 people that homosexuality is a "sin", even if you do not personally advocate violence and discrimination (and see yourself as "moderate"), violence and discrimination will eventually result. If I tell a class of impressionable young children daily that black, or Jewish, or gay people are inferior, lesser, sinful, dirty, impure they it is reasonably foreseeable that at least one of those children will behave in a manner that is discriminatory, violent or even deadly. It doesn't matter if I never meet a black person, or never pick up a rock, knife or sword myself I am party responsible for that.

We have had the terrorists own father expressing disgusting beliefs today, that his son's actions were wrong not because not because being homophobic is wrong, not even because killing innocent people is wrong, no....but because "Allah will punish these sinners". That is a prime example of the "moderate Islam" we are told must always be respected without challenge. After all it is "just an opinion" and "he isn't physically hurting anyone with that opinion". But it is DISGUSTING - it is an insult to those who died in that it dehumanises them (in not seeing them as human beings deserving of life) and insinuates they are still facing damnation from God following their death. And it is clearly partly from that attitude that this very specific hatred has blossomed in this young man.

PEOPLE ARE NOT BORN HOMOPHOBIC, THEY ARE MADE.

N.B I apologise for my obvious anger but "It has nothing to do with us" followed by a return to business as usual (preaching anti-gay sentiment and not accepting/tolerating/supporting gay people) is an absolute insult and a hypocrisy.

I truly hope so too.

I do not believe this will trigger any changes to the gun laws, as if the countless school shootings and daily homicides are not sufficient to trigger change then this will have no impact either.

However I'm hoping that the very specific and targeted nature of this attack will help in truly focussing and channelling energy into tackling issues still affecting gay people, one as you mentioned being the blood donation.

Additionally I hope this has the effect of humanising gay people and their lives to homophobes, creating more allies and tackling homophobia.

It is not stereotyping though when we have large-scale surveys pointing out that homophobia is rife amongst these communities. It is a statement of fact that has to be acknowledged if we want progress.

Where have those homophobic beliefs come from though? More than likely his religious father who has been expressing clear religious-backed homophobia in interviews today.

 

Everyone's talking about religion and politics, but that is not important right now. For now, I just want to be sad in peace. As greatwhale said, the shooter was not religious (though, naturally people are trying to paint it that way) nor was it a political thing. A disgusting excuse for a human people killed 50 people because he didn't like gays.

 

PREACH it, 741852963. You have a right to be angry. We all do.

I saw an article recently about anti-gay politicians expressing their condolences, which is natural, but none of them acknowledge that it was an anti-gay attack. If it's an attack against people you don't like, I guess it's okay to "erase" their tragedy.

Maybe we should have a separate thread to discuss the religious/political aspect, because it is important to some of us. It must be discussed if there is any hope of preventing an attack like this from occurring again in the future.

 

^ this


Though way to go with some people in this thread and other forums answering hate with hate. Because you know, that always works so well

 

Who here is being hateful?

I know some people are reacting angrily and it's probably not terribly helpful. At the same time, it's natural to be angered by an event like this, an overt attack on LGBT people en masse, and people are raising valid points about the attitudes and climate that contribute to these attacks. I think it's worth it to discuss these. We can do it also without being hateful. I hope so, at least.

 

Completely agree with 74. If Islam fails to address these issues or take any form of responsibility the attacks will only increase because they can get away with it. People who spread the notion that Islam is "100% peaceful" are part of the problem.

I'm sorry to anyone who has lost a loved one.

 

Christopher Leinonen is a confirmed victim. Damn. His mother was the one that was crying on the news. At least he's with his boyfriend.

 

I saw the texts from Eddie Justice yesterday; that was pretty terrible: Mom shares tragic texts from son during mass shooting - NY Daily News