In the early morning hours of Sunday, June 12, 2016, a lone gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub and murdered 50 people (so far; of the 53 wounded, 5 are listed in grave condition, so that death toll may climb even higher).
I'm not going to spit facts at you. You can look that shit up on your own. I'm not going to spit arguments about gun control, either, because this problem is so much fucking bigger than that.
I don't even know what I want to spit here, other than nails.
This was an act of terror, but not the kind we've gotten so used to in the last 15 years. This is an act not motivated by retaliation against a political enemy or a monolithic ideology. There is no "cause" here. There is nothing the world could have given Omar Mateen to make him put down that gun.
This is an act motivated by hatred, and hatred alone. Omar Mateen wasn't looking to scare anyone into submission; he was looking to simply kill as many of the people he hated as quickly as possible.
And those people were LGBT youth.
As the right-wing noise machine tried to argue in the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting last year, many will again try to argue this was motivated by religion. And they will do some impressive mental gymnastics to support this view. They will all but erase the real reason for Mateen targeting the people he did: they were queer.
Don't let them do it.
Omar Mateen was motivated by the same kind of hatred as Dylan Roof. Hatred against a class of people different than himself, simply for existing.
Pulse is a gay club. A place where LGBT people can gather and meet and be ourselves, without the fear that we face on the street every day. Where gay men can dance with their boyfriends, lesbians with their girlfriends, and bisexual people with whoever their partners happen to be. Where trans folk don't have to worry which bathroom to use. Where PDAs won't result in abuse and threats from onlookers.
It's one of the few places where LGBT people have a sense of safety, because everyone there is like you. Everyone there knows the struggle. Everyone there wants to get away from it for a few hours.
Omar Mateen sought that space out. Invaded it. Violated it. And ultimately defiled it with the blood of over 100 people, dead and wounded.
Straight people, you cannot fathom this. You cannot begin to understand the kind of bone-shattering fear this strikes into the hearts of everyone who is LGBT (or even wondering if they are). Because what this act has done is destroyed the sense of safety that we were just beginning to cultivate.
It's 2016. Marriage equality is the law of the land in all 50 sates. And we are still not safe.
Do you hear me? We are still not safe. Even when we build our own spaces where straight folks don't have to look at us. Even when we "stop shoving it in your faces" we are still not fucking safe.
Picture, if you will, being a child and hearing about 50 children shot to death at a Chuck E. Cheese, and you're starting to approach the kind of fear we're feeling right now. I say "starting to approach" because there isn't a persistent undercurrent in our culture that loathes the shit out children and wants them all piled in a landfill somewhere.
See, Omar Mateen was a lone wolf as far as Daesh is concerned. But in regards to the actual reason he murdered 50 people? He's hardly alone.
We're not safe because even though it's 2016, we still live in a culture marinating in hatred. A culture enabled by people who wish we didn't exist.
If you really want to be an ally? If you really want to help the LGBT community not just in Orlando, but everywhere this kind of massacre could occur?
Start speaking up.
When you see someone use homosexuality as an insult? Tell them that shit isn't acceptable.
When your friend makes shitty jokes at the LGBT community's expense? Tell them that shit isn't acceptable.
When your bigoted relative laments the destruction of the country because of marriage equality? Tell them that shit isn't acceptable.
This goes way beyond gun control. This goes way beyond terrorism. This goes right to the very fucking core of what makes us civilized.
The ability to coexist with other people and not murder the shit out of them.
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