What Makes A Place ‘Safe’ For LGBTQ Community?
In his statement on Sunday, Obama called Pulse not just a night club but also “a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights”. “We are people. We are brothers, we are sisters, we are children of our parents, we are parents of our own children”, said Reverend Bruce Baker-Rooks.
Other Americans will wrongly lash out at all Muslims, holding them collectively responsible for the heinous acts of a fanatical few.
“I thought there was like a fire at the club or some technical difficulty at the club and that people needed to evacuate”, Di’Costa said.
“What our country needs more than ever is less politics and more kindness”.
“There’s no doubt that a small set of cancerous extremists who call themselves Muslims are proactive in seeking to reach out to young, impressionable and in some cases unstable people across the world”.
“This hate is part of a national narrative”, Eskamani said.
If this guy wanted to kill American citizens (like himself!) he could have done so anywhere. “It’s important to realise why we still need Pride, because unfortunately there are maniacs out there targeting people”.
I am really not one for an “us” and “them” scenario - I’d probably find more straight friends in my phone book if I were backwards enough to count that or differentiate between sexuality and love, but it may be hard for a straight person to understand the implications of this fear on the queer communities and this reignited homophobia that had never really gone away.
Still, many in the LGBT community feel they’ve always faced the threat of violence. It is a daily experience all over the world. “Again, for members of the LGBT community … hate and intolerance has been with us for decades”. We should not seek to pass the buck, but instead strive to fix the broken pieces of our government that allow risky people to lay their hands on firearms with intent to kill. In fact, it kills.
While I didn’t know them, my heart breaks because I feel like I know some of their stories. As a black gay man who has dedicated his life to equality I have often tempered my anger in favor of civility and nonviolent protest, but on the morning of June 12 my anger could not be tempered.
Some are calling Orlando attack especially egregious because it is Gay Pride month in the US. No matter what his religion, it was a homophobic attack. It is a hatred that brutally crosses boundaries.
Sydney Harbour Bridge was lit up in rainbow colours on Monday as hundreds gathered in the Australian city to hold a vigil for the victims of a massacre at a gay nightclub.
That this horror to occurred in a gay club during Pride compounds the brutal misery and pointed nature of the attack.
And in the week after he took 49 lives in a gay nightclub on June 12, 2016, those people got on T.V. and Twitter and Facebook and confidently acted as if they had no hand in molding his perception of us as lesser beings. “It’s not necessarily a concern yet until we hear that they think it is”.
Hours later, 20-year-old James Wesley Howell of IN was arrested en route to a gay pride event IN Los Angeles, armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used for making explosives.
The shooting comes as the Pride committee faces lawsuits challenging its security arrangements after a series of shootings and violent attacks at the annual Pride celebration in the Civic Center in previous years.
In Lancaster, police lieutenant Todd Umstead said as a result, more police officers have been added to Sunday’s pride festival at Binns Park.
“Yes, we’re living in a post-marriage society, but it doesn’t mean just because I have the right to marry my partner that I’m going to be free from the violence or discrimination that exists within people”.