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"The idea that a bunch of drunk people dancing around a nightclub are safer with loaded weapons on their bodies is clearly not coming from a rational place, but from a place of deep insecurity and gender weirdness that treats phallic symbols like they are magical totems," she wrote. The myth that armed civilians could have done anything to stop them is absurd.Īmanda Marcotte's article focuses on the troubling growth of violent masculine aggression. Gun violence has targeted everybody from schoolchildren, to black churchgoers, to Sikhs, to military bases. While we find fault with our elected officials for repeatedly failing to change laws -and the antiquated Second Amendment- we do find acknowledgment of our struggle from around the corner to The White House. This terrible tragedy is a reminder of the threat of violence against LGBT every day, and why we must always remain vigilant."īut vigilant how? More than 100 gun murders took place in the past week, and more than a thousand this year. Whatever 's other beliefs or allegiances, that bedrock of homophobia is part of what drove him to carry out a brutal mass shooting. Pulse nightclub's logo, with an added white ribbon.Īs Michelango Signorile wrote for Huffington Post, "Hate crimes against LGBT people haven't dissipated since the arrival of marriage equality and have in fact been on the rise in recent years. This deliberate omission, like so many others from hypocritical religious and political loudmouths, is another form of homophobia in a country where the survivors of the Pulse mass murder could be fired from their jobs for being gay. The difference between a single gaybashing and this crime is guns high-powered assault weapons that have no place anywhere outside of a war zone.īut when a gay nightclub becomes a war zone, will LGBTQ people stand up against the rightwing Republicans -and even some Democrats- who continue to cowtow to their maniacal NRA lobbyists and allow the readily available assault weapons to kill more?Įven the governor of Florida refused to admit that the massacre was directed at LGBT people. That this is not surprising indicates how familiar many of us are with deeply closeted people, mostly men, who lash out in acts of homophobia because of their own fear and self-hatred.
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And so was the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen, according to multiple sources. He planned to attack Pride celebrations held this past Sunday, and according to reports, had a history of violent crimes, including threats against his ex-boyfriend.
#GAY BAR SHOOTING ORLANDO FL FULL#
In Los Angeles, in a separate thwarted mass killing, James Wesley Howell, from Indiana, had a trunk full of explosives and weapons.
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In the aftermath, it was reported that crime scene investigators had to 'tune out' the cacophony of ringing phones coming from bodies still strewn about the scene of the massacre.Ī GoFundMe account has been raised for Guerrero and Leinonen 's funeral, and the main fund ( ) has raised more than four million dollars in just a few days, with the Walt Disney Company donating $1 million. Also among the dead are a mother of 11 who twice survived cancer, a 31-year-old drag king and DJ, and young Latino and Latina people who were simply having a night out. Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez was at Pulse Sunday morning with his partner, Oscar Aracena, who was also killed in the shooting. That's why," the elder Juan Ramon Guerrero, 61, said through tears. Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, and his 32-year-old boyfriend, Christopher "Drew" Leinonen, were among the 49 people who lost their lives June 12 in one of the worst mass shootings in American history.Īs reported by JoeMyGod, services still need to be planned by the distraught families, but they want the two to be side-by-side when loved ones bid farewell, said Guerrero's father, who has the same name as his son. What they may not have expected was the resultant outpouring of compassion and anger from around the world. It's a part of coming out and coming of age.īut for two men, one who shot 100 people, killing half of them in Orlando, and another who was caught before bombing Los Angeles Pride, their own internalized homophobia turned outward to violence. That first step inside a gay bar, that first kiss between two girls, that first sighting of a trans or drag performer, are rites of passage for most of us, whether magical or awkward.
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"If you can't wrap your head around a bar or club as a sanctuary, you've probably never been afraid to hold someone's hand in public," wrote Jeramey Kraatz in one of the more asture of social media quotes that has swept the internet since the mass murder of 49 people at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida.