Voices: ISIL or not, Orlando shooting was hate crime against LGBT people
It was only a matter of time.
Hours after Omar Mateen opened fire June 12 on a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, the Westboro Baptist Church, a well-known anti-LGBT group, tweeted "GOD SENT THE SHOOTER to #Pulse in Orlando! The murderer is in hell! (Galatians 5:19-21) Repent all!"
Later that day, hate group leader and pastor Steven Anderson celebrated the massacre with vile comments in a video by noting there were "50 less pedophiles in the world."
“These homosexuals are a bunch of perverts and pedophiles," Anderson said, "that’s who was a victim here, a bunch of disgusting homosexuals at a gay bar."
Hate, it seems, isn’t always carried here from foreign shores. In fact, homegrown hate can be just as deadly as any rooted in the Islamic State’s ideology.
What is equally dangerous, however, is the number of people choosing to ignore that the attack was one rooted in homophobia. Those who insist the shooting was solely an Islamic terror attack try to erase the LGBT community from the narrative, causing only more pain by invalidating their experiences in this ordeal.
"This is not about a 'closeted gay' that was troubled about coming 'out'; this is not about whether the Islamist terrorist used an 'assault rifle' (that was legally obtained); nor this was about how much he hated the LBGTQI 'community,' " wrote one Facebook user, Jose Antonio Vasquez-Perez. "This was a well planned Lone Wolf Islamic Jihadist terrorist attack on US soil."
It isn't the first time something like this has happened. On Friday, we marked the one-year anniversary of the Charleston, S.C., massacre in which a gunman killed nine people who had welcomed him at a weekly Bible study. Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old suspect, reportedly told police he wanted to start a "race war."
Even though authorities quickly labeled the slaughter a hate crime and Roof would face hate crime charges a month later, some dismissed a racial factor in the days that followed. On Fox & Friends, Bishop E.W. Jackson said “most people jump to conclusions about race” and “we don’t know why he went into a church, but he didn’t choose a bar” or “basketball court.”
In an editorial, the Deseret News in Utah wrote: "Even if the murderer had racial hatred as his primary motive, his choice to attack a sanctuary of worship puts this crime in a similar category to attacks on worshipers — often coincidentally identified by race — worldwide."
Spectators gather to witness Obama's Orlando visit
In both Orlando and Charleston, we had brutal crimes perpetrated on specific communities: A black church, an LGBT club. Both places are welcoming, safe spaces for people who have been targets within their own country.
Authorities are scrambling to figure out the motivations that led to the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history. Within hours of the rampage at Pulse nightclub, police called it a "domestic terror incident." They acknowledged that Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.
But another picture of Mateen has surfaced. His father said he was repulsed when he recently saw two men kissing. Other witnesses say Mateen frequented the club, drinking and being belligerent. At least one person said he had contact with the shooter through a gay dating app.
Mateen might have been an Islamic radical, a self-loathing gay person and a mentally unhinged abuser. But that doesn't make the rampage any less an attack on an LGBT space. ISIL connections or not, for the LGBT community, this is a hate crime.
Jonathan Katz, professor of queer history at the University of Buffalo, said he noticed comments from hatemongers as well as remarks from pundits dismissing that the shooting targeted the LGBT community.
"What's interesting is I often find those most interested in saying this is a crime against humanity are the same ones who are against the queer community in other contexts," he said. "If we genuinely believe that queers are part of the human community, then we can and should say this is a crime against all of us. But that entails naming, recognizing and affiliating politically and emotionally with the queer community."
We argue so much about gun policy and the label “Islamic radical” that we risk overshadowing the voices of the victims and their loved ones. More than ever, they need us to lend our ears. Acknowledge their pain. Understand their unique position as the intended targets of this attack.
Let them know you value their lives as you do any Americans', and that any assault on them — homegrown or abroad — is not welcome.
Solis is a digital editor at USA TODAY. Follow her on Twitter @stephmsolis.