The Morning After.The Instrumentalisation of a Massacre.
I watched that scene unfold on Sky News last night in disbelief. That, my friends, is the lens of homophobia. Mark Longhurst completely dismisses the LGBT identity of the victims of the Orlando attack.
Let’s be clear, The shooter didn’t target blond golfers, VW owners or a carpet makers convention. His chosen victims were LGBT. Out of 69 entertainment venues in Orlando, the shooter decided to single out gays as meriting extermination. Why? Because of sexual orientation. Framing this in any other way is simply misleading. Not to mention disrespectful to the slain.
My Mazamet 
According to an imam in Orlando, Florida where the genocide occurred, the slaughter was a mercy killing: the final solution to the LGBT “problem.”
Hopefully, the West is now fully awake to Islam Jihad.
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If you’re going to say stuff like that please include a link so we can verify what you’re saying.
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Notice the way the bloke from Sky stresses “may have” at 3’24” in a way that suggests a meaning not intended by Mateen’s father, or at best, decontextualizing the father’s words. The BBC made a thing of this last night, patronising Jones as being “understandably upset” – poor thing that he is.
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I was screaming at the television at that point. I really couldn’t believe it.
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P.S. did you know that until yesterday, gay men still couldn’t donate blood in Orlando? It took this attack for the policy to be changed.
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Yes, I did. Fucking outrageous. Actually, I think gays in Florida have to declare they’ve not had sex for one year, after which time they can – isn’t that right? Ireland only voted this week to overturn a law saying gays couldn’t give blood – ever.
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Same thing in France. Gay men can only donate blood as of this year.
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Owen in his own words:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/13/sky-news-homophobia-orlando-sexuality
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Very eloquent, as usual.
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It seems the shooter forgot to shoot the sin and not the sinner. Funny, that.
Of course this bar’s clientele was targeted. But why… if the shooter was ‘merely’ a (very recent) ISIS supporter? Why this bar and not, say, a banking headquaters?
Well, golly gee whiz… isn’t that just such a mystery.
Except… it’s not.
We’d find the connection immediately if the target was, say, a school for girls, a political camp retreat, a mosque or synagogue. Media would be quick enough to make the obvious link but, hey, when it comes to LGBTQ, the befuddlement is pronounced because they can’t possibly really be a target of such hate.
Why not?
Well, if they were, then that opens up that religious damnation can of worms component, doesn’t it… you know, recognizing that the major player in ongoing, unconditional, condemning on moral grounds for same-sex and transgendered recognition of being fully human, of being real and healthy people rather than depraved, normal people with normal sexual appetites rather than people suffering from an improper, alterable, impure moral condition expressed in ‘unnatural’ sexuality, perverts and child molesters with an agenda rather than morally stable celebrants of gay pride equality achievements.
We can’t make that obvious connection. It’s against the religious roolz.
They were targeted because they represent something some people hate to the point of committing mass murder. And the root of that hate is not secular, is not a biological impairment, is not the result of reasoned principled commitment to equality, respect, and dignity of personhood. It is the inevitable result of believing in conspiratorial, attribution, assertion, and assumption of being an ‘enemy’, purposefully made into an Other empowered by faith-based belief that such hatred is the logical extension of responding to such in-your-face immorality. And it is immoral for one reason only: it is deemed thus and supported by a divine morally authoritarian agency.
As long as religions teach people to make their neighbours into Others we shall continue to regularly produce mass murderers out of otherwise normal people. I think Muslims are particularly vulnerable to this effect because the means to measure how good (or bad) a Muslim a person may be is by how closely one adheres to the teachings of ‘The Perfect Word of God’… teachings that vilify the LGBTQ and call for their deaths. That’s why these shooters seem to come from nowhere and yet carry out so much bloodshed: they are just ‘moderate’ Muslims or Christians or Hindus or Buddhists… right up until they commit an act of extremism. And that’s one of the most pernicious effects of the liberal religious community; offering cover and support out of which emerges a few extremists that only then the larger community denies as being a member in good standing.
But some of us see the obvious connection and a few of us are willing to take the larger Baskin-Robbins faith community to task for doing their essential part in creating the 57 flavours of religious extremists who act on the hatred they have been ‘carefully taught’ (to borrow a phrase from South Pacific). Too bad so many talking heads in media – and their political allies – are so dull-witted, so afraid of the faith communities’ response to criticism, that they are willing to sacrifice so many beautiful people to the bigotry and misogyny they think is worth doing their ignorant part to protect and then think there is no way to make meaningful change to reduce this religiously inspired cravenness.
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Mr. M,
One of the points raised by the woman on the panel was that Canada had more guns (per capita) than America. I automatically recoiled, as I knew that wasn’t true. In fact, I read some stats last night that suggest Americans have 89 guns per 100 people, and that Canadians have 31 guns per 100 people. Still too high, but nowhere near the love affair with guns that many American seem to have. (As my husband pointed out, that 31 guns would mean 31 REGISTERED guns. There are certainly more in circulation than that – still too many, in my opinion).
Just wanted to clarify that.
I also felt that Owen had every right to walk out on that panel. . . I was exasperated watching it; it must have been supremely frustrating for him to have to sit through it.
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Here’s an article well worth reading about how moderate religion offers the seed, growing support, and then cover for extremists.
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Loved it. Thanks for the link.
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What is the purpose of trying to ridiculously claim it wasn’t an attack on gays?? It defies comprehension.
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