Pulse Massacre Gunman’s Wife Knew of Plot

As USA Today is reporting, the tragic massacre at the Pulse night club could have been prevented had the wife of the gunman, Omar Mateen, had warned authorities of what her husband was planning to do.  Sometimes sins of omission are nearly as bad as sins of commission.  49 lives lost and dozens of other lives forever damaged all because she failed to do the right and moral thing.  Hopefully, her defense attorneys are not successful in alleging that she is innocent and she pays a severe penalty for what she knowingly allowed to happen.  Here are article highlights:

A handwritten statement given to the FBI by the wife of Pulse nightclub gunman Omar Mateen says she saw him prepare for the deadly attack for months and knew that the LGBT nightclub was his target. 

The 12-page statement, quietly released by federal authorities at the end of December in a batch of records in the case, was taken hours after the June 12, 2016 shooting. The attack left 49 dead and dozens of others injured. Noor Salman was questioned for hours, without a lawyer, after authorities learned her husband was the gunman behind the attack. 

She was arrested last year on federal charges of providing material support to a terrorist and tampering with evidence but has pleaded not guilty, claiming she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. She said Mateen abused her and claims she did not know of his plot.

But her defense conflicts with the signed statement she gave to the FBI, which details her knowledge of Mateen's planning and his path to carry out an attack on behalf of the Islamic State.

She told agents multiple times she knew his plans and that he was going to attack the Orlando club when he left their home.

She told agents she knew "my fears had come true and he did what he said he was going to do. I was in denial and I could not believe that the father of my child was going to hurt other people."

The statement includes that during a two-year span before the attack. Mateen would browse jihad websites almost everyday and frequently watch beheading videos. He was angry and frustrated about treatment of Muslims in the Middle East and talked about retaliating against Americans.

"He said if he did jihad everybody would know who he is," Salman wrote in the statement.

Salman's attorneys have been fighting against the use of the statement in court, claiming that she was in custody and had not been read her Miranda rights, according to the Orlando Sentinel. 

Prosecutors have said she was not under arrest and that all of her statements were voluntary, though she told agents several stories before writing the statement, which included an apology for lying to the FBI. 

Two days before the shooting, Salman saw Mateen looking at the website for the club. When she saw what he was doing, he said, "this is my target," the statement reads. 

Salman told FBI agents, "I knew that the time to attack the club was close."  The night before the attack, he left the house and looked "pumped up," she wrote in the statement, adding he told her, "This is the one day."

"I knew when he left the house he was going to Orlando to attack the Pulse nightclub," she wrote.

The larger issue, of course, is that pastors and mullahs are allowed to spew hatred towards others under the guise of "deeply held religious beliefs."  Worse yet, the organizations they represent typically enjoy tax exempt status, so every taxpayer is indirectly underwriting their messages of hate.   Personally, I believe that is time for churches and mosques to lose all tax exempt status. 

Pulse Anniversary: the Catholic Church Continues to Harm Gays

Within the last week I wrote a post about the phenomenon of LGBT individuals supporting anti-LGBT Republican candidates who push an agenda diametrically oppose to LGBT equality and equal human dignity itself.  A similar bizarre phenomenon can be observed with members of the LGBT community who remain members of the Roman Catholic Church, or worse yet actively support the Church and its anti-gay hierarchy financially.  Having been raised Catholic and having spent 37 years to "pray away the gay," I know first hand the ability of the Church to screw one up psychologically and to instill unlimited amounts of self-hate and internalized homophobia.  But I grew up in a pre-Internet age when homosexuality was classified as a form of mental illness. Today, there is so much access to accurate information that never existed when I was a youth or even college age.  And then there is the sex abuse scandal that revealed the utter moral bankruptcy of the Church hierarchy. Thus, I am continually amazed at those who remain in a church that condemns them and denigrates them, especially when alternatives such as the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are readily available.  Meanwhile, as a piece in the National Catholic Reporter sets forth, the Catholic Church continues to wound LGBT individuals and harm lives.  Here are excerpts: 

When Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 48 others inside a prominent gay night club in Orlando, Florida, a year ago this week, the city's Catholic bishop, John G. Noonan, denounced what he called a "massive assault on the dignity of human life." The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops lamented the "unspeakable violence." The Vatican's press office released a statement decrying "such terrible and absurd violence." Among these sincere expressions of grief, not one recognized the fact that this assault on human dignity and this horrific crime had targeted gay people specifically.

The first step in what will be a slow healing process is for Catholic leaders to acknowledge the church plays a role in wounding LGBT people by using dehumanizing language.

While the Catechism of the Catholic Church rejects violence and "unjust discrimination" against LGBT people, it also calls homosexuality an "inclination" that is "objectively disordered." Before he was elected Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger led the Vatican's chief doctrine office for more than two decades. In a 1986 "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons," Ratzinger described homosexuality as a "tendency toward an intrinsic moral evil." Seventeen years later, he wrote that growing recognition of same-sex civil unions legitimized the "approval of deviant behavior." Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, even celebrated a public exorcism in 2013 to protest the Catholic governor's signing a same-sex marriage law.

Dehumanizing language has consequences. "It doesn't reflect that our experiences as gay and lesbian persons are a gift, something that brings us closer to other people and to God," said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, an organization that works to build bridges between LGBT Catholics and the church. "People are alienated by this language and feel rejected. It ends conversations rather than begins conversations." San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, . . . . he called that terminology "very destructive language that I think we should not use pastorally." He explained that "in Catholic moral theology it is a philosophical term that is automatically misunderstood in our society as a psychological judgment."

For a pope, the way that Francis speaks about gays and lesbians is nothing short of revolutionary. "A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality," the pope said in a 2013 interview. "I replied with another question: 'Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person? We must always consider the person."

But these expressions are the exception, and not the rule. Over the past decade, at least 50 LGBT Catholics have been fired or forced to resign positions in Catholic schools after public disclosures of same-sex relationships. Students and families rally behind these teachers and administrators, who are often beloved leaders and role models with years of experience. While in most cases the school has a legal right to act, the firings leave Catholic institutions that want to teach students about mercy and justice looking blithely indifferent to those values. Contracts or "loyalty oaths" that some Catholic teachers are required to sign are often hyper-focused on sexuality. This disproportionate focus on sex and sexuality as the defining marker of Catholic identity is problematic. It eclipses the church's expansive social justice teachings that are rooted in the Gospel's focus on people who are poor, excluded and marginalized by the powerful. . . . . These firings tear apart communities that are filled with faithful people. The church is sending a contradictory message. We're told we are made in the image and likeness of God, but these kind of firings say that isn't true."

According to research, a majority of Catholics support same-sex marriage. Many church leaders usually interpret this evidence to assume there has simply been a failure to effectively teach and reach the faithful. Doubling down with the same message, however, has cost the church. Research shows that the growing number of Americans — especially Millennials in their 20s and early 30s — who no longer identify with any religion are especially turned off by what they consider to be unjust positions toward LGBT people. Those raised Catholic, according to data from Public Religion Research Institute, are more likely than those raised in any other religion to cite negative religious treatment of gay and lesbian people as one of the primary reasons they left the church.

If they want to retain the next generation of Catholics — including LGBT people and their allies — Catholic leaders should listen more closely and learn from the experiences of gay and transgender people. When more than 100 bishops and other Catholic leaders met in February for a conference organized by the National Catholic Bioethics Center, one of the top items on the agenda focused on how increased calls for transgender rights will impact Catholic hospitals, schools and parishes.

If Catholic bishops really want a church that listens, heals and goes to the margins as Pope Francis does, it's far past time to build a culture of encounter with the LGBT community. I recently met a Catholic deacon from St. Petersburg, Florida, who had a wake-up call after his son transitioned to a transgender woman. "I was blissfully ignorant of all things LGBT until it came to my family," Ray Dever told participants at a conference, "LGBT Catholics in the Age of Pope Francis." The Catholic father and others like him have a lot to teach bishops and priests who have rarely if ever sat down with a gay or transgender person. "There are so many families who reject their LGBT kids and that's tragic, especially when that is done in the name of faith," Dever said. "I'm no expert, but what these families need to hear is God created these kids just the way they are and that God loves them."

As I have noted previously, I left the Catholic Church and my best advise to LGBT Catholics is to walk away.  If you need/want a liturgical church,  I highly recommend the  Episcopal Church  or Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.  As for the Catholic Church, history has shown two things are what really forces the Church to reform: rapidly falling membership numbers and falling revenues. Rather than staying and "working for reform from within", walk away and urge as many family members and friends to do likewise.  That will bring the most rapid reform and an end to anti-gay animus. 

Christian Activist Arrested At Pulse Memorial

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the Pulse massacre that left 49 dead and more than 50 people wounded (and countless more emotionally and psychologically scared).  And true to form a "Christian activist" showed up spewing hatred and bigotry - see the image above - and disrupting the memorial service.  As noted before, unless and until religious liberals loudly confront and condemn the hate groups and individuals - e.g., Family Research Counsel, Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, James Dobson, the Southern Baptist Convention, etc. - who traffic in such ugliness, they will continue to allow Christianity to be defined by these types of hate merchants.  Sometimes open confrontation is warranted.  Thankfully, the Orlando police intervened and arrested the "Christian" protesters.  Here are highlights from WFTV 9:

A man who protested outside Pulse nightclub Monday following a ceremony marking the anniversary of the attack was handcuffed by Orlando police.

Local officials and the community had just finished a remembrance ceremony at the venue, which honored the victims and first responders.

The man, who has not been identified, was part of a group of about three protesters holding anti-gay signs. The crowds chanted, “Love conquers hate,” as the man was placed in handcuffs.

With "Christians" like these protesters on constant display, it is no wonder that nearly one third of the under 30 generations have walked away from religion.  With Hampton Roads Pride events in full swing this week and this weekend, this incident is a reminder that many hate us because we challenge their myth and fairy tale based beliefs derived from Bronze Age herders in the case of Christians, and the writings of a mentally deranged individual in the case of Islam. 

On a more positive note, the Orlando Sentinel has a number of respectful articles on those who died and the experiences of survivors which can be found here.

A Night of Terror, a Year of Racism

Today is the anniversary of the Pulse night club massacre in Orlando, Florida, where 49 young gays and some of their family members were murdered seemingly simply because the were LGBT.  In the year since, things have not gotten better for either gays or those suspected of being Muslim (e.g., the two Hindus murdered in Oklahoma by a man who thought they were Muslim).  In terms of LGBT rights, Congressional Republicans continue to consider a falsely named "religious freedom" bill that would legalize anti-LGBT discrimination, Texas's governor has called a special legislative session in order to ram through an anti-transgender bathroom bill, and Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, has rescinded Obama administration executive orders granting LGBT employees non-discrimination protections and through long time anti-gay zealot, Betsy DeVos, is seemingly opening the door to increased anti-gay bullying in our public schools.  As icing on the cake, over the weekend white supremacists, Neo-Nazis and hate groups rallied against Muslims and by extension anyone who wasn't white and Christian.  It would seem that as a country, many learned nothing from the Pulse tragedy, including Der Trumpenführer who, despite his boast immediately after the Pulse massacre has proven to be a dangerous foe to the LGBT community.   An op-ed in the New York Times by a a recent college graduate who had been a Pulse regular looks at some of the ugliness.  Here are excerpts:

A year ago today, a mass shooting during a Latin-theme dance night at Pulse, a popular gay bar in Orlando, Fla., left 49 people dead, more than 50 injured and the city — particularly its L.G.B.T. and Latino communities — shaken.

I woke up to about 60 notifications on my phone that morning. Most were from friends and family asking if I was O.K. My mother was crying, worried I had been at the club.

A drag queen from “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” who I love, performed there that night, so it was entirely possible. Three years before, as a freshman at the University of Central Florida, I often went to Pulse with my new college friends, all of us L.G.B.T. in one way or another and looking for a sense of community that seemed out of reach in straight daylight.

I remember being amazed by the swift and empathetic response from the city and much of the country. The shooting started at 2 a.m., and by the time most of the city was waking up, so many volunteers had headed downtown to help that blood donation centers were turning people away. Politicians of all stripes, including those who hadn’t seemed particular pro-L.G.B.T. or supportive of Latino communities, spoke of solidarity. Rainbows were painted all over Orlando; many still remain on the walls of the Walt Disney Amphitheater at Lake Eola or on the sides of police cars.

As a gay person of color, I found something truly comforting about this response. Part of me felt accepted, understood and even coddled in the midst of this harrowing event.

Another part felt more targeted than ever. . . . . My mom is from the Dominican Republic, where I spent most of my childhood. I speak fluent Spanish and have been known to cook a mean rice and beans with tostones. But my dad is from Pakistan, and from him I inherited a thin nose, dark eyes and a full beard of coarse hair. I am used to being treated as a suspicious person.

When I fly, for example, my Spotify playlist is usually interrupted by a T.S.A. agent letting me know I’ve “been selected for additional screening.”

This stereotyping has gotten much worse since the Pulse shooting, because despite the outpouring of support for L.G.B.T. and Latino people, the tragedy became an excuse to vilify Muslims before the 2016 presidential election.

The day of the shooting, before most of the victims were identified, Donald J. Trump, then a candidate, tweeted: “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism.” From that moment on, it was clear that the tragedy would not become a reason to champion noble or productive causes like gun reform. Instead, it would become Exhibit A in Mr. Trump’s justification for a ban on Muslims entering the country — despite the fact that the shooter was an American and Muslim refugees have not killed anyone in the United States.

The Pulse nightclub shooting was a terrible act of violence against a marginalized group of people. Attacking another marginalized group is not the way to prevent more shootings, or to help survivors heal. 

The Fruits of Right Wing Demagoguery

One hears ad nausea about how Christofascists "hate the sin, and love the sinner" as they spew vile anti-LGBT vitriol, never giving a care about the possible violence they are inciting. Indeed, after the Pulse massacre, some "godly Christian" pastors stated that the victims got what they deserved and/or that they wished more had been killed.  Fast forward and such talk appears to have been the motivation of a would be "Christian warrior" in Las Vegas who was fortunately caught before he could put his murderous plans into action.  Every time you hear a Southern Baptist bellowing anti-LGBT statements or parasites like Tony Perkins deliberately disseminating lies and untruths, know that somewhere a would be mass killer is listening and coming to believe that murdering others is righteous.  Here are highlights from KTNV TV 13:

A 24-year-old Las Vegas man has been charged for making terrorist threats in a video that was posted on YouTube.

Las Vegas police say they were notified on July 2 by Interpol via Google about a suspicious/threatening YouTube video.

Although Google had removed the video, they were able to provide a link for a detective to watch the video.

In the video, a man named Bryce Cuellar reportedly showed off two rifles and was wearing a military flak vest and night vision goggles.

Cuellar reportedly said in the video that he is tired of the government trying to take away his First and Second Amendment rights and says that he cannot wait to use his rifle in the manner in which the founding fathers intended.

He also said that he wanted to kill "gays, faggots, lesbians and satanists" and claimed to be a Christian warrior. Cuellar also said that he is tired of America and would begin killing soon.

Police also checked his Facebook page and found posts about the Orlando shooting and posts that outlines his anti-government, sovereign citizen and militia ideologies. Police say that Cuellar has become increasingly more radical and aggressive in his videos over the past 3 years. Based on the video and statements, Cuellar was charged with terrorist threats. He was also placed on a mental health hold at the time by Clark County Detention Center staff. 13 Action News was able to find a YouTube page that appears to be connected with Cueller. The YouTube channel has almost 161,000 subscribers and the channel's videos have been viewed more than 73 million times.

Cueller is being held at CCDC on $100,000 bail. He is scheduled to be in court on Sept. 1.

161,000 subscribers - that is frightening.  Yet, GOP and Chrisofascist extremist continue to stoke the flames that can ignite someone like Cueller - usually so that they can gain votes or line their own pockets with money.

Pastor Who Said Pulse Victims "Got What They Deserved" Arrested For Child Molestation

I swear that it has come to the point that when you hear a ranting homophobe, the only question seems to be one of how long until they are (i) caught in a gay sex scandal, (ii) arrested for molesting children, or (iii) in far less instances, having an adulterous affair.  The instances of liberals/progressives landing in such situations appears far, far less common.  Yep, it is almost always the "godly folk" who end up proving that they are complete hypocrites if not child molesters.  A case in point is "Bishop" Ken Adkins of St. Simons Island, Georgia who stated that the Pulse nightclub victims "got what they deserved" who has been arrested on charges of child molestation and aggravated child molestation with a child under age 14.  You can read the arrest warrant here.  Jacksonville Fox 30 has details.  Here are highlights:

Ken Adkins, 56, of St. Simons Island turned himself into police at about 9 a.m., according to officials with Georgia Bureau of Investigation. 

Adkins is currently in the Glynn County Jail. The investigation is ongoing. “I know nothing more about the allegations than what has been reported in the news, but it sickens me. If he is found to have done what he stands accused of, he deserves the fullest punishment the law allows," said Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry. 

Adkins has one church with locations in Brunswick, Jacksonville and Atlanta, according to his website. 

His wife, Charlotte "Stormy" Adkins, defended her husband in a statement Friday, calling the arrest "A rush to judgment by law enforcement." She added that the charges "Are false and that he will ultimately be cleared of any wrongdoing."

Charlotte Adkins said her husband "has asked to be placed on unpaid leave" from the Greater Dimensions Christian Fellowship, and that she had assumed position of acting pastor.  

Adkins recently came under fire when he tweeted "homosexuals got what they deserved" after the deadly mass shooting at Pulse Nightclub. His Twitter account has been set to private. 

Adkins' controversial campaign against the expansion of Jacksonville's Human Rights Ordinance to protect the LGBT community was waged mostly on social media. Jacksonville City Councilman Tommy Hazouri, who led efforts to expand the HRO, said he nearly sued Adkins when the pastor created pornographic images using Hazouri's image and posted them online.

Hillary Makes Unannounced Visit to Pulse

Everything Donald Trump does is about self promotion and grabbing media attention - all to satiate his overweening narcissism.  Yesterday, Hillary Clinton demonstrated that sometimes she simply does what's right and decent without looking for media fanfare.  While many waited for her announcement of who would be here VP pick, Clinton without ceremony visited Pulse, the site of the Orlando massacre last week.  The New Civil Rights Movement looks at Clinton's visit.  Here are excerpts: 

While many across the nation have been anxiously or curiously awaiting the announcement of who Hillary Clinton will choose as her vice presidential running mate, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee spent the afternoon in an unannounced private meeting with family members and friends of the victims of the Orlando Pulse nightclub hate crime mass shooting terror attack. Clinton then spent the next hour holding a roundtable discussion with community leaders, including members of Equality Florida, and, as one reporter noted, "listening." 

Orlando commissioner Patty Sheehan, according to Buzzfeed's Ruby Cramer, told Clinton, "I want to thank you for not politicizing this, and for waiting until we were ready." 

Rather than playing politics, Clinton is now visiting the Pulse nightclub, to pay her respects and meet with first responders. In fact, this tweet from NBC News' Alex Seitz-Wald appears to show Clinton prioritized spending time with victims' loved ones and meeting with community leaders then visiting Pulse, rather than focus on her VP announcement.  Clinton laid white roses at the site.

Hillary may have her negatives, but the choice is clear that she must be elected in November to defeat the fascism and authoritarianism that that a Trump victory would unleash on America.  What continues to shock me is the manner in which some Sanders supporters still cannot get their heads out of their asses and realize the existential threat posed by Trump.   Really, you want to stay home and by default elect a man that might become America's Hitler?  Get over yourselves!!

House GOP Holds Hearing to Legalize Discrimination on One Month Anniversary of Pulse Massacre

Anti-LGBT bigot, GOP Rep. Jason Chaffetz

One thing about today's Republican Party is that it never passes on an opportunity to make it perfectly clear to LGBT Americans that they hate us and will do all in their power to grant special rights to Christofascists to mistreat us under the ruse of "protecting religious liberty."  Their idea of religious loberty, of course only favors Christofascists and all those of other faiths and beliefs are basically told to go to Hell.   Particularly foul are today's hearings before Congressional Republicans on the falsely named "First Amendment Defense Act," a pet project of leading anti-gay hate groups.  Blogger friend Bil Browning looks at this foul exercise in bigotry.  Here are excepts:

One month after the mass shooting in Orlando at a gay nightclub, congressionalRepublicans are holding a committee hearing to discuss legalizing discriminationagainst LGBT people. Despite repeated calls from fellow lawmakers, activists, and civil rights organizations, chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) refused to cancel or postpone the hearing.

The hearing will focus on the so-called “First Amendment Defense Act” which would allow businesses and individuals to discriminate against LGBT people if they cite their religious beliefs. Conservative Christian organizations and activists have been clamboring for special exemptions from civil rights laws since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

“This hearing is nothing more than an election-year stunt to rally conservatives at the expense of LGBT Americans,” said Equality Act sponsor and LGBT Equality Caucus Co-Chair Rep. David Cicilline (RI-1). “Let’s be clear – there is no religious basis to deny basic rights and liberties to someone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. Period.”

“The Orlando tragedy on June 12 was a time of heartbreak for millions around the world and the worst attack on the LGBT community in our nation’s history,” said Obergefell. “Today, exactly one month after this horrifying event, this hearing is deeply hurtful to a still-grieving LGBT community.

Jim Obergefell, lead plaintiff in the 2015 same sex marriage ruling will testify.  His pre-written testimony can be found here at the ACLU website.

Quote of the Day: The Violence of Silence

Since the Orlando massacre at club Pulse, I have truly had my fill of "good Christians" and others who stand by and allow bad things to happen in part because of their silence and refusal to take a moral stand.   Be it homophobia, anti-black racism or other forms of bigotry, if one does not subscribe to such misogyny, you have a duty to speak out and oppose these foul forces in society.  Silence becomes complicity.  In a piece in the National Catholic Reporter, Sr. Jeannine Gramick, a member of the Loretto Sisters, a Catholic order of nuns that has ministered to LGBT individuals  - often much to the extreme displeasure and censure of of the Vatican - sums up this violence of silence.  Here are some of the most powerful excerpts:

One kind of violence not often recognized is the violence of silence. After the Orlando massacre, some in our church were guilty of this kind of violence. Headlines the world over noted that the shooting took place in a gay club, but statements released by the Vatican press office, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Orlando's bishop conspicuously passed over references that the people targeted were lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Some bishops issued no statement at all.

Silence is violence when, as in this instance, it denies the existence of a whole category of people, people who have been targeted with physical violence because of who they are. If I don't acknowledge your existence, I do not need to recognize your rights; I do not see that you need added protections. Furthermore, I am unable to know you or to relate to you in a meaningful way.

"Silence=Death," the slogan of AIDS activists in the 1980s, not only questioned President Ronald Reagan's silence about the disease, it also boldly declared that, as a matter of survival, silence about the repression of LGBT people must end. The violence of silence kills.

Would more Catholics had the spine and backbone of Sr. Jeannine.

Orlando: The Complicity of Christians

I realize that I have beaten this horse a great deal recently, but given the batshitery just noted in Maine in the previous post, the time has come when Christians who continue to support anti-LGBT churches MUST be confronted with their complicity in anti-LGBT discrimination, animus, and, yes, the murder of LGBT individuals.  No longer can these people be given a pass and allowed to speak out of both sides of their mouths.  They have a moral choice to make: they must renounce the religious based bigotry and cease funding anti-LGBT churches and organizations.  They need to grow the balls and spine to demand that their respective churches end their anti-LGBT policies and positions now, or they need to walk away.  Doing the morally correct thing often brings discomfort with it, but this Christian complicity needs to end.  I came across this lengthy piece written by a Methodist minister that looks at Christian complicity in anti-LGBT animus and atrocities.  Here are some excerpts:

The horrific massacre of 49 people and wounding of 53 more at Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando confronted certain Christian leaders with the dreadful reality that their own denominations might be complicit. The possibility that their Biblically-based anti-homosexual beliefs and discriminatory practices could have contributed to the anti-LGBTQ climate inviting such shocking violence was too repulsive for them to consider. Thus they responded with denial — and compassion.

Yet the reality of their complicity must be acknowledged and transformed, if LGBTQ persons are going to feel safe and be themselves in nightclubs – and in sanctuaries. The reality of Christian complicity must also be confronted if Jesus’ fundamental teaching, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” is to include everyone – rather than be perverted by denominational beliefs that brand certain neighbors as “incompatible” (United Methodist Church), “objectively disordered” (Catholic Church), or engaging in a “sinful” not “valid alternative lifestyle” ( Southern Baptist Convention).

While the 6,000 SBC messengers “regard those affected by this tragedy as fellow image-bearers of God and our neighbors,” they could not bring themselves to identify their “neighbors” as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender persons, which leads to another enacted resolution.

In the face of the shocking violence in Orlando just days earlier, The Southern Baptist Convention messengers, representing some 6,000 local churches, adopted a resolution ‘ON BIBLICAL SEXUALITY AND THE FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE.’ This resolution reaffirms the biblical statement that “marriage is between one man and one woman ordered by God,” and rejects same-sex marriage, legalized by the Supreme Court in 2015, as it “does violence to the Constitution and is contrary to the Bible and natural order.” The resolution favors the enactment of religious freedom laws that protect the conscience of Christians, by giving them the right to discriminate against persons whose lifestyle conflicts with their anti-LGBTQIA biblical beliefs.

Something else is going on among Christian leaders of anti-LGBTQIA denominations when prayer is their primary response to the Orlando shootings. Their refusal to acknowledge and confront their own denomination’s complicity in creating an anti-gay climate,  . . . .  they are compensating for their comfortable commitment to the status quo. . . . The moral posture of folding one’s hands and doing nothing.

The horrible violence against LGBTQIA persons at the Pulse gay nightclub led the Vatican to issue a statement, which began, “The terrible massacre that has taken place in Orlando, with its dreadfully high number of innocent victims, has caused in Pope Francis, and in all of us, the deepest feelings of horror and condemnation, of pain and turmoil before this new manifestation of homicidal folly and senseless hatred.”

Various Christian leaders used the word “senseless” to describe the horrific attack in Orlando. If the massacre of gay nightclub partygoers is defined as “senseless,” the complicity of Christian leaders and their anti-gay denominations disappears.

Florida Catholic Bishop Robert Lynch is one of the few Catholic bishops reported to have acknowledged the complicity of the Catholic Church in the massacre of people in the Pulse gay nightclub. To him, they were not “objectively disordered” second class church members. He wrote, “Sadly it is religion, including our own, which targets, mostly verbally, and also often breeds contempt for gays, lesbians and transgender people.”

The United Methodist Church engages in forked tongue theology by calling homosexuals “individuals of sacred worth, created in the image of God,” and in the next breath rejects their integral identity in declaring that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.” (Ibid) The practice of discrimination with a straight face. In reality, LGBTQIA United Methodists are relegated to an inferior position, and forced to ride in the back of United Methodism’s family bus — never behind the steering wheel.

But biblically-based and culturally indoctrinating homophobia dies hard. Just two months ago, the General Conference of The United Methodist Church met in Portland, Oregon, and continued its four decades-long practice of kicking the can of real inclusion down the road: another commission was formed to study The Book of Discipline’s discriminatory positions on homosexuality.

My July, 2016, VEER Magazine column looks at the issue of Christian complicity.  I am sure that many of the "godly folk" will be offended.  They need to be offended and forced to open their eyes and face the reality of their actions. 

Was Orlando Straight America’s Stonewall?

Like so many in the LGBT community, I continue to feel the lasting effects of the Orlando massacre that brought out in the open the hatred the LGBT community faces daily.  As my husband has said, that could have been us had we been in Orlando visiting and looking for a fun dance club to visit. And it could have been any gay/gay friendly bar across the country.   While a wake up call to those of us who are LGBT, as noted in a piece in Huffington Post, one can ope that what happened at Pulse on June 12, 2016, will over time prove to be the seminal act of terror/horror that gave straight America the wake up call that it needed to recognize its own complicity in the slaughter.  In my view, there needs to be a much larger discussion of religion's role in fomenting homophobia and the responsibility borne by "good Christians" who fail to forcefully confront - and hopefully over time, silence - the purveyors of anti-LGBT hatred who continue to stand in pulpits across America.  The truth is that Christianity is the wellspring from which homophobia was globalized.  The following are highlights from the HuffPo piece on how Orlando will make a lasting difference:

President Obama made history last Friday by conferring national monument status upon the site of the Stonewall Rebellion. As of yesterday’s dedication, Stonewall became the first national monument commemorating an event in LGBT history. That the president took this step with the nation still reeling from the antigay massacre in Orlando highlights how the two events — Stonewall and Orlando — are intertwined as major inflection points in the movement for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality.

The mass shooting at Orlando’s gay nightclub Pulse jolted straight Americans in much the same way that 1969’s Stonewall Rebellion accelerated the LGBT rights movement. Like Stonewall, Orlando catalyzed a collective self-reckoning and resolve for progress. But unlike Stonewall and the other anti-LGBT attacks that followed it in the decades since, Orlando’s aftershocks have rocked all of America - most notably Straight America - and not just LGBTs.

No LGBT American needed yet another reminder of the dangers we face on a daily basis. Orlando was not the first mass murder motivated by antigay hate.  . . . Many LGBT Americans have been the victims of violent crimes motivated by antigay or antitrans animus. In fact, the FBI classifies LGBT Americans as significantly more likely than any other minority - including Latinos/as and African-Americans - to be targeted by hate crimes.

So, while the Orlando mass shooting was horrifying to LGBT people, it did not necessarily surprise us. It was anti-gay violence and hate of the kind to which we have grown accustomed. We have learned to coexist with precarity, and walk the netless high wire that outness often entails.

Orlando’s aftermath, however, has differed materially from that of prior anti-gay mass hate crimes. This time, LGBT Americans were not left to mourn alone. To the contrary, there has been a loud, sustained, and unprecedented outcry by straightpeople condemning what happened in Orlando - and not solely as a mass shooting of unprecedented magnitude, but as an expressly and intolerably antigay mass hate crime.

Some statements rang hollow, like those from politicians and religious leaders known for trafficking in antigay hate in exchange for votes or donations. But a great many came across as sincere and heartfelt.

Some of the boldest displays of solidarity came from corners not usually known to be welcoming, nevermind attuned, to the LGBT community. Sports, for example. 

Teresa Jacobs, the mayor of Orange County, FL, which includes Orlando City, at the Lake Eola vigil that drew 50,000 straight and LGBT mourners lamented that the straight majority’s indifference to homophobia’s ubiquity helped the Orlando Massacre happen. She said: “We failed them when we were insensitive....and we failed them when we knew it was wrong, and we did nothing.” She observed that her “generation and the generations before were indoctrinated with beliefs and messages that fostered and perpetuated hate and prejudice, sometimes intentionally....” She called “on every member of our straight community to open their hearts to acceptance, to embrace diversity, and to cherish our differences.”

Slate’s J. Bryan Lowder reported from Orlando that “[a] number of queer folks [he] spoke with...observed that, in the wake of the tragedy, straight people in their lives seemed to be experiencing a kind of revelation about how precarious and stressful being LGBTQ still is in America.” He quoted one person as saying, “people are getting woke, right?” . . . . Many straight Americans arrived at these distressing realizations in Orlando’s wake, after having been lulled into the false reassurance that last year’s nationwide marriage equality victory represented the full normalization of gay life. 

This heightened interweaving of Straight with LGBT America cultivated the familiarity and empathy demonstrated so vividly, everywhere, over the last two weeks. It rendered the Orlando Massacre a catalytic event in LGBT history - as a straight counterpart to Stonewall. It is a watershed moment that is accelerating progress in the LGBT movement by raising awareness, activating countless new straight allies, and mainstreaming demands for full LGBT equality.

Orlando’s aftermath has recruited legions of new straight allies to the LGBT movement. The LGBT civil rights movement is no longer a movement for and by LGBT Americans. It is an American movement. For and by all of us.

I hope the author's prediction proves right.  Meanwhile, we in the LGBT community need to keep the pressure up on  the many new straight allies and help to focus efforts on destroying the roots of homophobia in America: toxic religion and shameless Republican politicians who use anti-LGBT animus literally daily to promote themselves with the hate-filled Christofascists.  

Christianity's Role in Maintaining Anti-Gay Animus

If nothing else, the Pulse massacre in Orlando has open the stage for an honest discussion about the role of Christianity and those I call the "good Christians" - i.e., akin the the "good Germans" at the time of Hitler's rise to power - bear in keeping anti-gay animus alive and well and socially acceptable at least among conservative and Republican Circles.  I call this Christians "Good Christians" because like their German counterparts of roughly 85 years ago, they stand by silently as their churches and pastors preach anti-gay hatred even as they themselves claim to not agree with the anti-gay diatribes.  Despite such protestations - almost always made in private conversations - these Christians continue to financially support the churches and "family values" organizations that daily promote hatred and reject modern knowledge in favor of a few passages written thousands of years ago by unknown authors who would be deemed utterly ignorant by today's standards.  

In my view, it is far past time that these good Christians cease being given a pass and not confronted for their at best complicity in funding and supporting homophobic and typically dishonest denominations, church hierarchies, and pastors.  They need to either step up and be part of the solution or confronted for their role in keeping hate and homophobia alive.  Will these people like the confrontation?  Most definitely not because they, like most of us, don't like having to candidly analyze their beliefs and/or sheep like following of church leaders are who are noting less than foul. The favored phrase of  "love the sinner, hate the sin" needs to be challenged head on for the disingenuous bullshit that it is.  A piece in Think Progress looks at this ongoing support of hate and homophobia that must be challenged.  The harm caused goes far beyond creating an atmosphere where some feel free to murder those who are LGBT.  Here are article highlights:

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, Christian conservatives known to be anti-LGBT expressed sympathy for the victims and their families, suggesting that radical Islam was wholesale to blame for the attack. Many avoided mentioning that LGBT people were the victims — at least until a few days later, when they began reminding everybody what they truly think about gay people.

“Yes, we can oppose gay marriage and still oppose the slaughter of gays,” Steve Pauwels insisted at BarbWire.

“Yes, Christians do believe homosexual actions are sinful. But we also believe that mass shootings are sinful, and lying is sinful, and gossip is sinful, and so are laziness, torture, theft, rape, dishonesty, abuse,” Mary Tillotson argued at The Federalist. “As a Catholic, I go to confession about once a month to repent, seek mercy, and renew my own commitment to rid myself of sinful behavior. We all sin.”

“It is true that many Christians hold to the Bible’s teaching on the sinfulness of homosexuality and that upsets some gays,” wrote Rick McDaniel at the ChristianPost. “But here is an opportunity to simply receive love and support and it is rebuffed.”

There’s a reason it is rebuffed.  Conservative Christians have long argued that their condemnations of homosexuality are couched in love, complete with the catchy slogan, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” But that message — that homosexuality is a sin — is harmful in and of itself.

Countless studies have assessed the impact of various forms of stigma and discrimination against LGBT people. The negative consequences of discrimination, bullying, and family rejection are well documented, but fewer studies have actually looked at the direct effect of religious condemnations of homosexuality.

Studies on ex-gay therapy, also known as sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE), shed some light on what happens when gay people directly interact with religious beliefs that reject their identities. Often times, the people seeking SOCE are trying to reconcile who they are with their own beliefs.

In 2009, the American Psychological Association (APA) issued a comprehensive report rejecting the effectiveness of SOCE based on all available research.  . . . .  The report then explained how the research had found that all of these struggles came with mental health consequences. Individuals felt culpable, unacceptable, unforgiven, disillusioned, and great emotional distress — feelings that were associated with anxiety, panic disorders, depression, and suicidality. And notably, these consequences occurred “regardless of the level of religiosity or the perception of religion as a source of comfort and coping.”

Survivors of ex-gay therapy have confirmed these consequences with their own stories. In an informal survey conducted by the organization Beyond Ex-Gay in 2013, 92 percent of people who had undergone SOCE reported experiencing harm as a result. Besides the fact that the treatments didn’t actually work to change their orientation, the respondents said that trying to “pray away the gay” caused them to experience shame, depression, fear, anger, lowered self-esteem, feelings of failure, and even suicidal thinking.
 According to [Dr. Doug] Haldeman’s [clinical psychology doctoral program at John F. Kennedy Universityb] oservations, “The messages — ‘You are of less value,’ ‘You are disordered,’ ‘You are somehow an inferior person’ — either directly or implied by these anti-gay statements — have a negative effect on everybody who experiences them. You don’t even have to go through conversion therapy to have some of the sequelae of having internalized these effects.”

Like Tillotson wrote, many religious conservatives try to justify condemning homosexuality as a sin with equivocating statements about how “we’re all sinners,” but this does little to soften the blow.

First, the comparison to other actions treats a person’s sexual orientation like it’s a choice, a hypothesis that science has roundly rejected. The attempt to compare homosexuality to more common sins like lying, laziness, and gossip may be an attempt to downplay the severity of homosexuality, but it actually disproves its own point. LGB people are singled out for condemnation and ostracization from society, while liars, sloths, and gossips — i.e. just about everybody — are not. Likewise, comparing homosexuality to sins that actually hurt people, like theft and murder, communicates that LGB people deserve as much scorn as criminals — and in many countries, they are treated as such.

In reality, U.S. religious conservatives do single out homosexuality for condemnation. Stephen Kim, an evangelical pastor in New York, took this approach in his response to the Orlando shooting. “As Christians, we grieve today,” he wrote, “not so much because people died (for we will all one day die) — but because fifty souls went straight to Hell without any further opportunity for repentance.” They died in the midst of committing a sin, and thus “they did not die as heroes. Instead, they died as depraved sinners. Maranatha!”

Dr. Ilan Meyer, who has long studied the impact of minority stress on the LGBT community at the Williams Institute at UCLA's School of Law, told ThinkProgress that "the message that homosexuality is a sin is not really simple. It is at the core of homophobia." Because it's an explicit tenet instead of just a prejudice, it creates the sense that nobody is really to blame for the harm that belief causes.

It affects, really, every waking hour in one way or the other." Every single time a gay person caught in that thought loop sees a person who they might find attractive — or even just thinks about such a person — they are reminded of that condemnation and the notion that there is something wrong with them. As the therapist whose job it was to try to help end that thought loop, Haldeman confirmed that the internal effects are "devastating."

Perhaps the most important — if unsurprising — finding from Ryan's research is that the least accepting families tend to be the most religious. "Religiosity was really at the core of the kinds of behaviors that families engaged in to respond to having an LGBT child."

Indeed, a 2014 study found that LGB people who lived in anti-gay communities had a life expectancy that was 12 years shorter than those who lived in more welcoming communities. Incidentally, those with anti-gay attitudes also had shorter life expectancies. The same researchers had found a few years prior that LGB teens experienced a significantly higher risk of suicide simply for living in a more conservative community.

As noted, these "good Christians" need to be confronted and challenged.  Silence equals complicity in the horrors.  They cannot say that they are not anti-gay while remaining in and financially supporting anti-gay denominations and churches. They don't get to have it both ways.