Let's talk about Hate

Yesterday, I awoke to the news that a shooter had killed 50 people and wounded 53 more in a gay nightclub.

Later in the day, I got news about a man who was pulled over for a speeding ticket on his way to LA Pride, and arrested for a car full of rifles and bombs after neighborhood watch reported him for peering in windows. He said he was going to Pride..

The narrative around the men was achingly familiar to anyone who watches news.
The first, being Muslim, was labeled a terrorist. (he did call 911 and claim to be Daesh, but Daesh did not take credit until after the event. It was grandiose self-inflation on his part)
The second, being white, was labeled mentally ill.

They were BOTH garden variety homophobes.
The only difference is they believed their religious rhetoric more than most and decided to act on it.

~~~

I asked myself why I was so angry about it, so afraid. It's hundred of miles away. I didn't know anyone. And these days I'm only marginally involved in the community. Not like the early 2000s when I was volunteering at the Center twice a month.

Then I remembered:

Mudd was recently featured in an article in the local GLBT magazine. Photos and all.

Olivia and her friends, and most of the local gay youth group went to a showing of Rocky Horror on Friday.

They will both march in the Pride parade come October, and I will be watching.

My household goes to Perpetual Transition every Monday night.

We are all targets.

~~~

I thought too much yesterday.
I figured the Right Wing would be salivating.
They get fifty dead queer PoC, which they would consider an objective good in itself, that they can pretend to care about and Muslim to blame for it.  (The LA event would have been much more problematic for their narrative.) I write political thrillers and that would have been a master stroke of plotting in my opinion.

And Ted Cruz, who has connections to Kevin Swanson, a pastor who called for the death of gays, tweeted about his "thoughts and prayers."  Hence the "pretending to care" part.

There was a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment--even though the shooter was American. There was a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment.

I tend to ask the latter: How can you tell? Or shall we just murder all 3.3 million in the US, plus all the ones who look Middle Eastern but aren't Muslim, in the name of our fears? Because genociding religious groups is not good publicity.

My father opined that they're all crazy and we need to be out of the Middle East entirely. I reminded him of Dr. Jezbi and Dr. Ahmed, both of whom had saved my life and my hearing.

~~~~

And people ask why I live by the axiom "Straights hate Gays." They think it's sad, that it doesn't give allies enough credit.  Maybe it doesn't. But it means that things like this never surprise me.


And now, I think I need more chocolate. It's the thing after Dementor attacks. And this one has been a lulu.