Saddened? Of course. Angry? Hells yes. Shocked? Not really.

The unfortunate reality is that the brazen attack that took place in the early hours of Sunday morning in Orlando is just more of the same hate the LGBTQ community has faced for millennia. We’ve been stoned to death, hanged and had our bodies burned, burned alive at the stake, arrested, lynched, beaten, committed to asylums, subjected to electro shock, chemically castrated, lobotomized, and the list goes on. 

The Orlando shooter, who we will not name as those who commit these acts should be stripped of their humanity, could have been Christian, Jewish, Hindu, etc. He used a religion to justify and strengthen his homophobia. Are there facets of Islam that promote violence towards Queer people? Yes. But there are also many facets of Christianity and Judaism that do the exact same thing. All Abrahamic religions (Christian, Judaism, and Islam) have it in their scriptures that homosexual and bisexual men are to be put to death. 

The fact that this person pledged allegiance to ISIS/ISIL doesn’t mean much. At the end of the day this was an act of hatred carried out against the Queer community. Had the person who was allegedly going to carry out an attack against the Los Angeles gay pride parade been successful would they have called it a terrorist attack (even though the potential attacked wasn’t Muslim or tied to ISIS/ISIL)? Doubt it. The Republican party must also share some of the blame in this incident. They, along with many evangelical Churches, have created a culture of hate toward the Queer community. Passing laws allowing people to fire us for being LGBTQ, actively trying to deny us rights, saying we shouldn’t be allowed to teach, the list goes on and on. They are perpetuating hate towards the LGBTQ community and they must own that. 

Was this a terrorist attack? Yes, it was a terrorist attack against the Queer community, in the same way that the mob lynchings in Jamaica and Russia are a terrorist attacks against the Queer community. 

In the aftermath of this tragedy there have even been those applauding the attack, and guess what? They’re from all different faiths!

Now is the time make sure that our voices are heard. That this is not about Islam versus the Queer community, but about homophobia in all places that it exists. In politics, in the work place, in churches, in mosques, in certain cultures/communities. The issue here is homophobia and the perpetuation of the idea that Queer people are less than. The other issue that needs to be addressed in the United States is one of gun control. A person should not be allowed to buy an assault rifle. There is no need for it. None. You want a hand gun, fine. But a weapon that is designed solely to not just kill people but kill multiple people as quickly as possible should not be made available to the general public. 

When this happens again, whether it’s some poor young gay man beaten, tied to a post and left for dead or an attack like what we saw in Tel Aviv last year and Orlando just yesterday, it will happen again, we will come together as a community once again to proclaim that we will not be kept down, we not be afraid, and we will ensure that love triumphs over hate. Our community has dealt with this for millennia, and we’ll be dealing with this for at least a few more years yet. Despite these attacks one thing that has become clear is in the past few decades is that things are getting better and better for Queer people.