Shirska's Thoughts on Orlando · 9:07am Jun 13th, 2016
He managed to unlock the device, and began reading through some of the archived files. He went to the photos first, as images often told more. In the most recent photos were screenshots of news articles about a place called Orlando. At first, he didn't read too deeply, but one short phrase caught his eye: "50 dead, 53 wounded." He went back to the top of the article and read it in further detail. The article told of a tragic massacre at a gay bar, and the further in he read, the tighter his fists clenched.
He reimagined the situation happening among his people, and he could not get the image of his father being the murderer out of his mind. Someone with that much hatred for people finding love in a different way should not exist. But the worst part was realizing that the shooter was a person, just like every human he'd worked with or talked to, just like his people, just like his pony friends, and just like himself. Society made the shooter act in such a way, and that was the sobering part. The shooter's society failed to make it clear that such actions as his were unacceptable. Humanity as a whole had failed that day.
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Hey guys, I heard about the tragedy in Orlando and, being queer myself, I had to do something. That tragedy was without a doubt a hate-crime against the LGBT+ community. If you believe even on the smallest level that Orlando, or Sandy Hook, or San Bernardino were NOT acts of domestic terrorism, you are part of these massive failures of humanity. You are part of the problem of senseless violence.
And if you are one of those people who sees gay people in public with their partners and you get angry, get the fuck away from me and every other queer person. If you hold any homophobic or transphobic views, get the fuck off of my blog post and stop reading my stories because I don't want you here. I'm tired. Us queer people...
We're fucking tired of this. We're tired of reading about these tragedies and wondering when it's our turn to die. We're tired of holding funerals for our siblings and our parents and our children and our partners and everyone you take from us.
When you ask us, "Gay marriage is legal now, what more do you want?" our answer is, "We'd like to not get murdered."
And we're tired of trying to tell you that.
And we're tired of all of this pain and fear.
We're tired.
As a bisexual man, I 150% agree with this. It's sick that some people hate the very concept of love. Just because it's not the kind of love they think is "proper," that doesn't mean it's any less real. People like the Orlando shooter (even if the only place they exercise their bigotry is in their own mind) don't understand what the world is about. The world is not about tearing people down. The world is about standing by each other. We may not always have the strength to lift each other up, but it doesn't take any strength to stand beside someone.
I just... I can't believe this happened in 2016. I think now, more than ever, people in the LGBT community need to reach out to one another. Thanks for this insightful blog post. I, too, am mourning for the victims and their families.
I support you all the way man. Even though I'm not a member of the LGBTQ community, I support equal rights and treatment. I'm tired of it too. I was literally leaving Orlando from my family vacation there as it happened.
What you're seeing here is the Caliphate attempting to enforce its laws -- shari'a -- in Western societies by means of terrorist attack. This is part of a wave of terrorism they explicitly called for, to be launched during Ramadan. And in shari'a, homosexuality is punishable by death.
This target was cleverly-chosen, because the point is to get some Westerners who hate homosexuals, to sympathize with the motives of the attackers. Also, gays are at least perceived to be politically-vulnerable, because their political allies are unwilling or unable to do anything against Muslim anti-homosexuals, as it will offend Muslims (the Muslim radicals, watching our system from the outside, don't realize that gays don't vote as a bloc).
Unless we as a nation act effectively to block terrorist entry into America, and the radicalization of Muslims in America by ending the idea of "different culture" as a de facto exculpatory factor; and in cases like this respond with massive and deliberately over-proportionate retaliation against the foreign sponsors (where present), these attacks will continue. Islam will always find lunatics whose mad hate can be encouraged, rather than suppressed, by a religion largely built around hatred; and they can be primed and shot off like rounds of ammunition against us -- and worse, like precision guided munitions, against the parts of our society which they don't like.
Worse, because it means that they will change us to be more like them.
Have you enjoyed the last 40 or so years of freedom to be openly gay, a freedom unprecedented in the history of the West, maybe of civilization? Do you want to keep it?
Then be prepared to fight for it, because Islam does not mean that you should keep it.
That is the significance of what happened in Orlando, and what has already begun happening in London and many other places in Europe.
FIght, or lose your freedom.
i do not support same-sex marriage. i am also vehemently against gay people getting murdered simply because they are gay.
4019371
This is not a Muslim problem. Terrorism has no religion. This massacre may have been the biggest since Wounded Knee, but Islam is not responsible for this. A person, like you and me, chose to do this, using religion as an excuse. Religion itself is not inherently bad or hateful. Religion depends on what the individual brings to it. If they bring hate, then their (insert religion name here) will be hateful. If they bring love, their (insert religion name here) will be loving. Please do not bring your Islamophobic bullshit here. I have no patience left for it.
<3 DarqFox
I disagree with you on one thing.
This coward, and any other coward who commits these acts, is not a person. Not anymore.
They are a virus, a disease. Something to be eradicated from our species in the interest of self preservation.
To give them humanity is to give them more than they ever deserve.
People worthy of humanity don't think about killing over religious beliefs, gender or sexuality and if you disagree then seek help because you clearly need it.
This is why terrorism happens, we still call these monsters human and act like they are human.
Terrorists are not humans, they are a blight, an infestation, and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can stop it.
4019571
Gotcha. Islam no harder on gays than Christianity.
Processing. ....
Goodthink accepted.
Memory hole open.
Victims flushed.
Memory hole closed.
I agree totally
4019738
We must acknowledge that the shooters in these tragedies are human, or we will never acknowledge the true problem. Our society created these people, and played a key role in what they did. We are responsible, collectively, for these massacres.
</3 DarqFox
4020191 The media has been creating them for years.
4020191
Oh yes. Our society is very hostile to gays. Poor Omar was probably just trying to fit into America. Wasn't he the real victim here?
4021535
That's not what I'm saying and you know it. I'm saying that our society's inaction towards solving this problem is why these tragedies keep happening. We've been doing nothing since Sandy Hook, and we're still doing nothing, and inaction is not making the problem go away. Until we act to prevent these tragedies, they will keep happening, and we will be responsible for our inaction.
Deliberate inaction is itself an action, and it's not working to solve the problem.
</3 DarqFox
4022352
Toward solving which problem? Islamic terrorism? Homophobia? Violent poorly- assimilated immigrants? Violent crazy people?
4022352
If you mean "guns" you are over 650 years too late and the 3D printer renders the quest utterly futile.
4022384
The problem is not guns themselves, it's how easily and readily available they are. The shooter beat his ex-wife, was questioned by the FBI for ties to terrorist organizations twice, and could still buy an assault weapon that gave him the power to kill 50+ people in a few minutes.
Fun side-note, the shooter was born in New York. Right here in America. He grew up here. He was an American.
</3 DarqFox
4023572
Yes, and that's always going to be true, barring a surveillance state out of a dystopian nightmare. If he wasn't allowed to legally buy the rifle, Omar would have bought it illegally. What difference would the legality of the weapons purchase have it made to the outcome?
Yes, Omar was a native-born American citizen. He was also a radical Muslim. And, given why he was a native-born American citizen, a legacy cost of the Cold War.