Just fyi, “Moslem” is widely considered by American Muslims to be an outdated and often offensive version of “Muslim.”
Westboro also threatened to show up in Lafayette, LA after the theater shooting. Never came.
@dietz199 This was a crime of homophobia and transphobia. Don’t try to erase it. Those promote homophobia and transphobia need to own their guilt.
At least the vicious “pastors” ranting on youtube aren’t trying to hide their glee.
- The Westboro misfits' goal is publicity, it's no more plain than that. However I doubt they will show up in Orlando because even a fool knows that fire burns.
- The perpetrator arrested in Los Angeles has been identified as a gay/bi-sexual man by at lease one friend. That's what I read in the Washington Post the other day. As was said up-thread, news of his arrest was widely published/broadcasted.
dietz, this isn’t funny. Clearly the shooter was homophobic. Unless you’re saying that he chose Pulse randomly, out of all the bars in Orlando and after having been there a dozen times.
Not funny at all…agree. Homophobic behavior based on religious beliefs…not funny The shooter avowed allegiance to a homophobic belief system; one which clearly believes that death is the appropriate punishment. And then ACTED on that belief. I have no problem understanding this relationship between belief and action. Sure, the belief system would cause the shooter to hate himself.
I happen to believe that the perpetrator has FULL responsibility for the actions he took and trying to massage the situation to avoid the connection between a religion which out right commands followers to kill homosexuals is just silly.
If members of Westboro took action based on their beliefs which resulted in deaths…would there be this hand wringing and attempts to make it anything other than what it is…killing in the name of religious beliefs?
No one is defending him. Sheesh. He spoke about ISIS. AND he was homophobic. It can’t be both?
The problem is that commenters, Jane Q. Public and media representatives alike, just can’t get their minds around the circumstances of this atrocity; a gay antagonist who simultaneously expressed malice and sexual attraction, espoused racist views, largely attacked gay victims and Hispanic victims, and demonstrated naked brutality and fatal anger based on religious convictions and his alienation from American culture.
I don’t know what media everyone else is watching but the ones I’m watching sure as heck are talking about his racism, homophobia, and self-hatred that is coming out.
Then again, I don’t read comments sections and fully admit that I live in a bubble where people understand that one can be both gay and homophobic, a minority and a racist, etc. Heck in public health we had to create a whole new term because so many men would admit to having sex with men but then said they weren’t gay (or bi or queer).
We are already at war with ISIS and we are doing it on our terms, with drones and such, to reduce our losses but make no mistake we are not soft on ISIS. Let’s be clear about a few things. It absolutely matters what people believe about why the killer did this. If he was radicalized, or even inspired by ISIS, that means we can keep assault rifles on the streets and, in fact, maybe should sell even more. You see, it is ISIS’s fault not AR’s fault.
That way all the NRA’s friends and paid for buddies get to keep their murder weapons under their beds without a trace of shame or guilt. The silence from one side of the aisle is deafening.
I hope this is my last post on this thread. I hope people don’t light a candle or two and sing a song and then move on. That is what I did after Sandy Hook and all the other tragedies. Not anymore. Not for me. We are already fighting ISIS so no one is going to change the subject and make me think weapons of war need to be on the streets. Or, even more sickening that it is the POTUS’s fault what happened in Orlando. No one is going to trick me.
Whatever the government is doing to stop terrorist attacks, it is not working. One thing I saw on TV last night. The FBI does not share information about people on the terrorist with local police. Why? More eyes and ears would be helpful, seems to me.
No country with more freedom than the DPRK can prevent all possible terrorist attacks.
US foreign policy is complicated.
It is a 100 times more complicated in the ME. We can’t talk about politics here so for the remainder of this post I will convey my thoughts using shadow puppets and smoke signals. Keep in mind, we are at war. In wars people die. As I posted, 150+ posts ago on this thread there are two sides to every coin and when we take someone out in the ME we are defending ourselves and our interests but we are also leaving behind anger and seeding the thoughts for revenge.
It seems to me, we are degrading our enemies just fine while minimizing our losses. The policies we have are, to an extent working, but that surely does not mean home grown terrorists will not strike again.
well, let’s face it, we all know and love gay people. really, really love them and it could have been our loved one(s).
It is gut wrenching and terrifying. Just because of who they are.
Once again, a reminder that this will not be a debate on gun control.
I think that it is important not to focus only on this guy being part of ISIS and ignoring the homophobia , which some have done. If we turn this into being strictly about “Islamic Terrorism” and that of course someone claiming to support ISIS would be homophobic, since 'they are all like that", it takes away from people looking in the mirror at their own attitudes and realizing, amidst this carnage, that this incident , as horrible as it is, is not the only consequence of homophobia. Some religious leaders have started to realize that, that when they give sermons comparing gay people to pedophiles or bestiophiles, when they call lgbt people ‘broken’ or ‘disordered’, they are guilty of fanning the flames of hate that can lead to something like this. This also includes what some call “legal lynching”, when people oppose measures that would protect LGBT rights in things like employment and housing, or are trying to pass laws, like the one that did pass in Mississippi, that in the guise of “religious Freedom” has basically made discrimination against LGBT people legal as long as you claim it was religious belief. There was an op ed discussion in the Times about this, and conservative religious people kept claiming that LGBT rights infringes on their rights to their religious beliefs, that every gain for LGBT people, in one person’s words, came at the expense of their rights…and if you asked them, they would say they aren’t homophobic, yet their words belie that idea, since if LGBT people gain rights, they still have the right to their beliefs, the problem is they want the right to their beliefs and the right to legally discriminate against gays, which in turn comes around to the idea that they have the right, because it is their religious belief, to treat gays as less than human, which in turn is the very definition of homophobia. It is one thing to believe being gay is a sin, it is another to focus on their sins while ignoring the sins of others. After all, those claiming religious belief supports discrimination against gays, how come they don’t extent that to other sins? Why aren’t they asking for the right to fire someone who got divorces (which they can’t in most places), fire someone who was found to be adulterous, fire someone because they are living with an opposite sex partner without being married?
If we ignore homophobia in the shooter, then it stops people from looking at what homphobia does in our society as a whole to LGBT people. Not to mention, of course, the fact that conservative Christians seem to think that only their beliefs deserve protection by having law reflect their beliefs, how about the many Christians, the majority, who don’t think LGBT people are broken or sinners or the work of the devil?
Proportionately, we’re doing a great job controlling so called foreign terrorists.
It’s shootings by Americans that we’re having a hell of a time controlling… but that’s been the case for decades.
@musicprnt I totally agree with everything you stated.
In Arkansas tomorrow a committee is voting on allowing a religious exemption for councilors who want to refuse service to LGBT people.
Of note not a single therapist has asked for this its just a pre-emotive law.
It’s heartbreaking, we haven’t even had the funerals yet and facing more discrimination. It seems very cruel especially to do it this week.
@musicprnt , I love the content of most of your posts, but I BEG of you: PARAGRAPHS!!! 
The guy had homophobia issues, but there are a lot of homophobic people out there who aren’t violent. Would he still have committed mass murder without the Muslim/ISIS identity?
My guess is his objective was to cleanse himself of his own personal sin (as defined by his religion) by embracing martyrdom.