New Victims, Same Old Hate

With or without the support of Islamic terrorism, the Orlando shooter was motivated by hate.

In the same town where a few days earlier a young pop singer – Christina Grimmie, 22 – was killed with a shot to the head after a concert, the most deadly attack with firearms in the history of the U.S. happened: a 29-year-old armed man entered a gay disco and murdered at least 50 people (according to the numbers shown on Sunday night) and injured 53 before being killed by the police. The fanatics of the Islamic pseudo-State took the opportunity to claim the slaughter, presenting the perpetrator – Omar Mateen, an Afghan-American – as a “caliphate soldier.” This had already happened in the San Bernardino attack, perpetrated by a couple. Nevertheless, Omar’s father prefers the strictly homophobic vision: his son had seen two men kissing in a Miami street, and had got upset. However doubtful this version might be (or Omar would have never walked the streets of Miami or Orlando), the most relevant thing here is that the targets are again difference and freedom; that is, everything that the fanatics of the Islamic State group or Afghan Taliban hate the most. And since difference and freedom have as their protagonists anonymous civilians, then these are the preferred victims, no matter if they are in France, the U.S. or in any other country or continent where they exhibit it. It is not a secret to anyone that gays and lesbians are treated as criminals, tortured and murdered by radical Islamists who, being in power or out of it, invoke some divine authority in order to commit atrocities. The case of Orlando, which has surpassed the number of deaths of other firearm attacks in the U.S., even the most famous (and there are so many of them!), is now an example of what happens when hate and terror go together. Having the support of Islamic terrorism or not, the truth is that the shooter in Orlando was driven by his hate of difference and of freedom. Let us not give in one inch in the fight to defend these values.