Orlando Murders: Thinking it through...

That train has already left the station.

Beyond ideologies, beyond scapegoating ...

I'm glad I can't 'shake' this off my back.  I'm glad I just can't move on and wait for the next tragedy, terror attack, hate crime - whatever fits yours or someone else's agenda.

I always feel as if these things 'happened to me' personally - and I have to work through it, I have to pray and sit alone and in silence, trying to sort things out.  Lately I hear in the background those nostalgic strains from "Iron Sky" but I know the lyrics mean something else ... 'beyond love, beyond hate...' we cannot go beyond love - unless it be a false love.  Instead, I ponder 'beyond ideologies, beyond scapegoating ...'

Why it's important for some to call the attack homophobia.

It seems very simple to figure that out - maybe too simple.  It removes the act, the massacre from being an act of terror committed by a Muslim, to being a homophobic hate crime instead.  As an act of domestic terrorism by a homophobic man who is conflicted about his own same sex attraction, Islam is immediately exonerated of any responsibility for the act.  Hence the insistence it couldn't be ISIS terror - but homophobia.  Despite the fact some American Islamic leaders believe gay people should be killed.

I formed that opinion after watching Tavis Smiley's interview with civil rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar, author of Scapegoats: How Islamophobia Helps Our Enemies.  While I don't disagree with him on everything, I think he is wrong to claim the Orlando attack was exclusively homophobic - Mateen was decidedly influenced by ISIS and claimed the action for the terrorist group, who in turn claimed him as their own.  Complicated, I know, but I think Iftikhar is doing a bit of scapegoating himself.

So you really want to make this about homophobia?

Why?  Because there is an ideology to promote.   It is ideological and it robs the victims of their humanity - more pointedly, the dead are being used to promote an ideology.

Calling for the American Bishops to identify it as a crime against the LGBTQ 'community' is motivated by politics and ideology.  I've noted in the past few days why  I think this is wrong, writing, take into consideration that one could easily claim the attack was anti-Latino bigotry - which is just as ludicrous as the claim it was a homophobic hate crime. The nightclub was a soft target for ISIS terror. The attack is being used by all sorts of people now to further their agenda with hate-filled rhetoric.

This was a hate crime on people, not just gay people.

I noticed a link to a First Things article after viewing a feed from Creative Minority Report on Fr. Martin's response to the 'failure' of the USCCB to specifically send condolences to the LGBTQ 'community':

Fr. Martin expresses his dismay over the responses of the American Catholic bishops, not because the bishops failed to express sorrow, outrage, and solidarity with those suffering, but because they did not (except for Chicago’s Blaise Cupich) direct their condolences explicitly to the LGBT community. - First Things

I admire and respect Fr. Martin very much.  I respectfully disagree with him on this however - with no loss of respect or esteem for his person and priesthood.  As the author, Elliot Milco makes clear:

Note well—Martin’s complaint is not about any lack of sympathy or solidarity, but about the language with which the bishops chose to identify the suffering. “All those affected” (Abp. Kurtz) isn't enough. “The people of Orlando” isn't enough, either. We need to stand with the identity group of which those affected were mainly members, because they were targeted neither as residents of Orlando, nor as random bystanders, but as members of that identity group.

Fr. Martin's video is a great example of his thoroughgoing humaneness and care for words. He says what he means, and makes clear as always that he deeply means what he says. He is nonetheless wrong, and I think his statement is misleading and uncharitable to the bishops in question. - ibid

The Catholic Church and the LGBT Community have divergent understandings ...

To make a long post short - I will simply reprint Milco's reasoning for why Fr. Martin is wrong on this point - he makes some important distinctions.

What does it mean to be “gay” or “LGBT”? This question could be answered in many different ways: according to sexual preference, behavior, orientation, identity, psychology, biology, lifestyle, etc. There can be no question, though, that at present the label “LGBT” and its components represent more than simply a fact about the dispositions, lifestyles, or biologies of various individuals. They represent a highly developed political and anthropological ideology, which makes hard claims about human nature and desire, morality, the structure of the family, and the proper use of bodies.

To be clear, everyone who identifies with any of the labels that go into “LGBTQ...” is worthy of our love, our sympathy, and our solidarity in their quest (with all Christians) for the truth, for justice, and for eternal happiness. But what we share with our brethren on account of our common humanity does not nullify what divides us in terms of our choices and beliefs about happiness, justice, and the truth.

And so, here's the rub: The Catholic Church and the LGBT Community have divergent understandings of human nature, personal identity, the proper use of bodies, and the requirements for happiness. As Fr. Martin rightly points out, Catholics treat the LGBT Community as “other”—not because the Church wishes to exclude members of the LGBT Community from the mercy of Christ, induction into the Church, or eventual participation in the Sacraments (on the contrary, this is one of our great hopes), but because the beliefs, practices, politics, and morals proposed by the LGBT Community as an ideological bloc are fundamentally inimical to the primary end of man. - Finish reading here.

This is close to what I wish I had been able to express.  As I pointed out in another post: Remember that one survivor from the Pulse shootings who insisted - "this is about hate - hate on human beings - not just gay people."  It's an act of terror. Make it about gay - about ideology and politics - you really become part of the problem.

"This was a hate crime on people, not just gay people. We were never a disease or abomination. We are human. We wanted to be accepted, we were in our safe comfort zone. This was somewhere we can be us. There is no judgment when you enter somewhere you are safe at, it's like your home." - Survivor Demetrice Naulings CBS

And it's a hard rain falling ...