Forty Nine of my brothers and sisters died today.
Forty Nine of our brothers and sisters.
I do not have any more claim to pain or sadness or fear than
any of my heterosexual brothers and sisters.
You see, these victims are not my brothers and sisters
because I am one of the letters in LGBT. They are my brothers and sisters
because they are human beings on this planet.
And 49 of them are dead. Another 53 are wounded. Early
estimates stated that there were 320 human beings in Pulse when a young man
began shooting them. Began shooting all of them.
Almost thirty percent did not make it out uninjured. Thirty
percent.
Let that sink in for a minute. Think of how many people were in church with you this morning. Think of how many people were in the restaurant where you last ate a meal. One. In. Three. Dead or wounded.
There were seven people in my class this morning. One dead.
One wounded. Five running in fear.
Twelve people at my office tomorrow. Two dead. Two wounded.
Eight running in fear.
Where is the world where we do not have to fear? Being in a
club. Being in a school. Being on a plane. Walking down the street.
As soon as I saw the initial reports, I said to myself “do
not, under any circumstances, read the comments.”
It is hard to not succumb to that temptation. There is a
part of me that wants to seethe and burn with the type of anger that caused a
young man in the early hours of this morning to walk into a nightclub and start
shooting everyone. The same type of anger that says I am right and you are
wrong. The same type of anger that says I somehow have more of a right to be on
this planet than you do.
Facts are still coming out. We do not know anything yet but
his name and numbers and, frighteningly, the numbers are subject to change.
I will tell you that I looked. I did click the comments box.
I did see.
Hatred. Blaming. Anger. Disgust. Racism. Homophobia. Islamophobia.
Make. It. Stop.
Stop stoking the fire. Stop blaming someone else’s religion.
Stop hiding beneath the virtue of your own religion. You do not get to say that
I am going to hell because I am homosexual and in the same breath cry out that
the shooter was a Muslim and therefore a terrorist.
And please do not begin shouting from your soapbox “now the
liberals will use this to further their anti-gun agenda.”
You are right. They will. As they should.
While I am not a gun owner, I have been. I do believe that
individuals have the right to own guns, provided that they know how to safely
use them and, more importantly, know how to protect their children from them.
I refuse to believe that any individual in this country has
the right to an automatic weapon that has the capacity to shoot 102 people in
the length of time it takes to listen to a song.
There is no reason for this.
There is no reason for any of this.
Sometimes it is hard to find love in my heart. The man who
walked into that club and started shooting people is a human being also. I do
not know where to go with that. What to do with it. How to cope with the ache and
sadness and hopelessness of yet another senseless tragedy.
Tell me who to vote for. Tell me who to donate to. Tell me
where to march. Tell me what flag to fly and banner to bear and sign to hold.
Tell me where my voice can be heard so that my brothers and sisters and I can
stop living in fear.
I am proud. I am proud to be queer. I am proud to be a yoga
instructor. I am proud to do needlework. I am proud of my gender expression, my
tattoos, my ridiculous dog. I am proud that I am a good person, a good friend,
a good lover. I am proud to be a human being, sharing space with all of you.
And I am sad.
Forty nine of our brothers and sisters died today.
