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Tuesday 14 June 2016

Orlando Shooting - Acknowledge the realism of it.

Never should it be possible to write so many posts about hatred, death, violence and prejudicism.

But here I am, once more, trying to put together a few words that could perhaps put some sort of light on yet another horrific event that was fuelled by a lust for shrinking a group of people living their life as they want to.

Firstly, let's not go about this thinking this man was a muslim or whether he had any links with IS. 

I'm tired of writing posts defending muslims. It's futile wasting anymore time about it. By now you'll have made up your mind whether muslims are good people or not. I just hope you will have realised that being a bad person has nothing to do with religion. It comes down to being a bad person. Simple. 

Moreover, this individual seemed to have no links to IS, even though he claimed to. He was just trying to be part of something bigger without being part of it. 

So, with that out of the way, let's try and think about the very real issue about what happened a few nights ago. 

49 people were killed. 
Many were wounded. 
All caused by one man, one assault rifle, one hand gun, one explosive device, and one will to inflict as much hurt and destruction as humanly possible. 

His motive, it seems, was to kill those who belonged to the LGBT community. 

He's not the first and unfortunately will not be the last.

Yet we are all astonished that something like this has happened. We are all astounded that this sort of thing still happens and to this scale.

Homophobia, isn't that a dead phobia?

No.

Homophobia is still a cancer in the western world that doesn't seem to be shrinking but just adapting. 

There's this silly idea that homophobia is disappearing and that we are finally over that prehistoric hill that was riddled with ideologies that being gay is inhuman, wrong and unnatural. 

Well, we're not and if you haven't noticed already, it's not a hill but a bloody great big mountain with idiots filled with hate all over it, trying to express views which are a minority but loud when shouted alongside gunfire. 

The shooting at Pulse Gay Nightclub was a hate crime. Yet people are afraid of acknowledging that.

For some reason we are becoming more concerned about saying 'they aren't just gay, they're people too'.

Well of course they are but they have their own independence and sexuality too. When they are killed for being gay they become far more than just killed individuals. They become a target and a victim. A symbol for a wider community.

The video below should hopefully highlight the point I'm making here.



People are trying so hard to treat  LGBT people as equal individuals that they are doing the opposite. 

We shouldn't be trying so hard to think of these people as just victims of a man and his gun.

They weren't.

They were slaughtered because for no other reason than being gay.

And that, unfortunately, is the realism of this.

Homophobia is no weaker than it was 10 years ago.

It's just not in the press as much because other things take priority.

It has altered, adapted, and become quieter because of, luckily, society's realisation that being homophobic will stop you from getting a good job, being accepted into a community, etc.

But it is still out there and it still causing huge issues.

The international support for the LGBT community has been inspiring but it will take far more than just that to eradicate homophobia from society.

Ridicule those who make homophobic claims.

Highlight them to the wider world.

Not doing so allows them to go about their prejudice ways without the fear of being caught or humiliated for it.

And just because someone might not go to the length of killing a gay person, it doesn't mean they aren't part of the same large and grotesque tree that is homophobia. 

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