Some musings...

[anigo]

So I've had this thought a bit about the Orlando shootings. About the "29 year old Islamic Radical".

Would it be at all possible that this man might have been gay or bisexual, and as a Muslim had some pretty conflicted feelings about his sexuality. He got progressively more angry, who knows why... because other people were able to express their sexuality openly, because he'd been made to believe that being gay or bisexual was wrong... who knows why... and mix that with a good dose of mental instability, he snapped and, in order to take the focus away from his own sexuality he made a point of citing some radical Islamic motivators as he was killing innocent people. The old "bait and switch".

Part of me thinks it doesn't really matter, a bunch of innocent people are dead; but another part of me thinks that it wasn't Islam or homophobia that killed these people, or at least not directly, it was the inability of an individual to come to terms with his own sexuality, because of Islam and other people's homophobia that resulted in so much death and destruction.

There's a difference. In the first scenario, Omar Mateen is the perpetrator. In the second, he's as much of a victim as those he shot.

So much sadness under either scenario.

Comments

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right...

[renewedme.livejournal.com]

Without a doubt I think that is the issue!

[anita-margarita.livejournal.com]

When the first reports came out about him being gay, I thought, "self-loathing in extremis." But now there are more reports about his very troubled youth throughout school and adult life, all probably made far worse by his father.

And there are probably many more just like him out there.