In Support and Remembrance

I’ve never believed in God as such, but when I was younger and felt that my life was awful I used to blame an unseen higher force for all my woes. It was easier to have something to aim all my anger at, to assign every misfortune, mistake and problem to a person or being that was separate from myself. “What have I done to deserve this? Why do you have to be such an arse? Couldn’t I have just one good thing?” That kind of young and dramatic wailing about how terrible my cosy and normal childhood was.

It’s easy to give your opinions, your culpability, and your will over to an ideology that tells you what to think and feel. But at some point you have to grow up and take some responsibility for your life, for the part that you play in society and the world as a whole. Thinking for yourself and looking at the world around you with an objective, understanding eye and an open mind is difficult, but the consequences of not doing it are all too clear for us to see. Especially now, after the mass shooting that left 50 people dead and 53 injured in a nightclub in Orlando; an attack carried out by an extremely disturbed individual who got it into his head that homosexual people impacted his life in some negative way. Obviously, Omar Mateen was mentally ill in some way. See, that’s the only explanation that makes sense to me. But it doesn’t explain his actions, does it? It doesn’t excuse them or put them into any context that I could ever understand.

Mateen was an individual, but homophobia is a general problem in most countries, perhaps even all of them. I don’t understand that either. One line in a book written thousands of years ago justifies hating an entire group of people for…but for what? What do homophobic people think LGBT people will do to them? Why do they care about another person’s sexuality so much? I can’t imagine hating someone for being gay, bi, transgender or any other of the many forms of human sexuality, it really doesn’t matter to me in the slightest. It doesn’t impact my life, and more than that it causes no societal problem, harm or damage that I can think of, except of course for the prejudice and bigotry aimed at it.

It’s also easy to blame religious extremism, as Donald Trump took the opportunity of Orlando’s tragedy to make a point about Islamic extremism like it had any major impact on the event. Mateen may have used it as an excuse near the end, to justify what he wanted to do and give himself the push to do it, but Trump also conveniently forgets that Christianity is a major source of persecution in the LGBT community. Then again, I’m arguing with the most ridiculous figure in political history. Who’s the bigger fool, the fool or the fool who argues with him?

Tragedies like these reveal the ugliest and most horrifying depths that a human being can sink to. They also reveal how beautiful, supportive and accepting we can be too. All those people who donated blood, who attended the London vigil, who bravely came out and proudly stated their sexuality in support of the victims and those families and friends who will never be the same. Hatred won’t win, ever. We condemn it but never reciprocate, it solves no problems and soothes no pain. If I believed in God, I’d pray that something like this would never happen again. As I don’t, I’ll simply hope that the goodness, decency and wisdom of people will fight for changes to make sure this never happens again.