Thoughts on Orlando
It's looking increasingly like internalised homophobia and self-hatred played a significant part in Mateen's actions, and that he sought to 'legitimise' his actions, perhaps in some way justify them to himself, by claiming he was acting on behalf of Da'esh. What is really concerning me is that so many people are so ready to conflate his actions with Muslim extremism and, by extension, perpetuate the idea that all Muslims are somehow dangerous and that all non-Muslims should therefore be afraid and suspicious of Islam. Young white male mass murderers, of whom there have been a significant number, rarely provoke commentary on how we should fear and reject everyone who looks like them. If we want to point fingers, by the way, we should be pointing them at the far-right Christians who have repeatedly and insistently portrayed members of the LGBTQIA+ community as less than human, undeserving of equal rights - people one should feel perfectly justified in discriminating against, even to the level of bringing in/ proposing state-wide laws in the US that underpin and legitimise such discrimination. This needs to be addressed and recognised, along with questioning how interest groups like the NRA helped to put weapons into Mateen's hands. Don't point fingers at Muslims, the vast majority of whom are ordinary, peace-loving people who also number members of the LGBTQIA+ community amongst them, point them at these people - the far-right Christian homophobes, and those who are now trying to claim that if everyone in the club had been armed, Mateen would have been stopped. Call them out on their actions. These are the people who frighten me, not my Muslim sisters and brothers. #loveislove
