Reflections on the Pulse Massacre Three Years Later

Today - June 12 - is the third anniversary of the massacre at Pulse, and LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida.  Like so many in the LGBT community, I was stunned and sickened by the huge loss of life - Pulse is the largest deadly attack on LGBT individuals in American history.  Moreover, the massacre was a wake up call to many in the community that it is still dangerous, some times deadly so, to be LGBT in America.  In the intervening three years, things have decidedly not gotten better in many parts of the USA.  The Trump/Pence regime continues to wage war against LGBT rights and anti-gay Christofascist extremists hold sway at the White House.  Shockingly, today in Orlando an anti-gay pastor who condones the murder of gays announced a "make America straight rally" where pastors who cheer the execution of gays will rally in the very same  community where LGBTQ people were massacred three years ago.  Some take umbrage at my use of the term "Christofascists" yet in a telling coincidence, Iran's foreign minister defended that country's execution of gays in language nearly identical to that used by American Christofascists, including those announcing the horrible rally in Orlando: 

“Our society has moral principles,” . . . “And we live according to these principles. These are moral principles concerning the behavior of people in general. And that means that the law is respected and the law is obeyed.”

Make no mistake, the mindset is the same among this Christofascists and Islamic extremists in Iran. Hatred of others and a desperate clinging to antiquated writings by ignorant authors (in the case of the Koran, I would argue a mentally ill author) are the common thread. 

A piece in The Advocate reminds us of the horrors that occurred three years ago.  Here are highlights:

I remember waking up that morning at 7 am and reading the headline “20 DEAD” in a shooting that had ended just one hour and 46 minutes earlier. Regrettably, I remember accepting that 20 deaths was a “normal” number for our world, that 20 was a somehow understandable figure — a calculable loss that tracked with casualty statistics of other shootings at the time. Cold numbers.

But I lost it when the Orlando Police Chief revised his estimation from “not 20 but 50.” Fifty. Could you imagine that? Fifty people just like me.

Many other numbers didn’t make it into mainstream news reports. If these other facts and figures had made national headlines, we might all think about Pulse differently. For example, 90 percent of the victims were Latino, of whom a full 50 percent were Puerto Rican. Four Dominicans and three Mexicans were also murdered, and three Colombians were critically injured in this attack. Where were these numbers when we needed to feel them, when we needed to match them to the images we were seeing?

With 49 murdered in a three-hour timespan, Pulse remains the single deadliest incident of violence against LGBTQ people and their allies ever committed.

And yet, queer people of color are 1.82 times more likely to experience physical violence than queer white people. We make up only about 42 percent of the LGBTQ community, and yet, a full 73 percent of all LGBTQ homicides are committed against us. Ignoring these numbers is killing us.  These are the numbers we needed to see then, and we still do now.

Three years after Pulse, I want to remember the aerial footage of 10,000 Floridians lined up in the sweltering streets of Orlando, fanning off beads of sweat in the scorching summer sun as they waited to offer blood — their own biologies — to the victims of the night before. The temperature that day peaked at 90˚F, with a heat index pushing toward 100˚F, and yet the endless line of blood donors remained in place long after the sun had set. Staff at OneBlood’s main office kept their facility open until 3:00 a.m. and still had to turn donors away. These are the innumerable heroes I choose to remember. I want to remember the numbers that reveal unmatched heroism that night. I recall the story of Akyra Murray, the young woman who initially escaped the chaos but, who, at only 18 years of age, made the courageous decision to reenter the scene in search of her friend. Akyra found her friend, but she never made it out herself. She had just graduated high school ranked third in her class.

I want to remember Imran Yousef, the former Marine who, at 24 years of age, tore open a patio fence and helped an estimated 70 people escape the gunshots. I want to remember the unnamed hero who died blocking bullets from at least two survivors behind him. I want to remember Brenda Marquez McCool, a mother of 11 children who loved her son so much she died saving him.

I want to remember the 5,300 pints of blood donated in central Florida on June 12 alone and the 28,000 pints donated throughout the week. And in one victim’s particular case, rather than hate the individual who caused his pain, I want to remember the surgical team and the 214 donors whose blood helped save his life.

As the piece underscores, there are many, many good Americans.  But, the unifying thread for so many who are evil is racism and religious based homophobia - homophobia that continues to be fanned from pulpits across the nation and from the White House.  Religion - especially fundamentalist religion - remains an evil and curse on humanity.