This is a shameful time as a human. How on earth can our brain behave like this. It’s almost impossible to understand this. Words can’t catch it!
A gunman killed 50 people and injured at least 53 others on Saturday 11th of June after storming a gay nightclub in Florida in a vicious act of terrorism and homophobia.
The «lone» attacker, identified as Omar Mateen, 29, entered Orlando’s Pulse club shortly before 2am local time (6am GMT), where hundreds of revellers were partying.
Armed with an assault rifle and a handgun, he then took terrified victims hostage before opening fire, showering the venue in a hail of bullets.
Mourners gather outside the iconic New York City gay and lesbian bar, the Stonewall Inn, to light candles. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Emotional gatherings of LBGT supporters honour those killed in America’s worst mass shooting in modern times. Multiple cities have set up vigils, including Rome, Paris, Jerusalem and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Gay rights supporters in Rome took part in a candlelight vigil Sunday night in the gay- and lesbian-friendly neighborhood of Gay Street, located near the Colosseum where just yesterday the city held its Gay Pride parade. In Paris, supporters gathered at the Beaubourg art center, placing candles in a small heart-shaped vigil and holding the rainbow flag.
Rio de Janeiro congressman Jean Wyllys, Brazil’s best-known openly gay lawmaker, condemn not just the attack but the homophobia that he said was also a deadly issue in his own country. And in the US, I should ad, and in many countries around this world.
Wyllys writes: “It could be any of us! Do you know any gay man, any lesbian, anyone who is bisexual? A friend, a workmate, a neighbor, a cousin? Because they could be dead if they had been in Orlando, having fun in a club without doing anybody any harm,” he wrote. “Homophobia and transphobia are not abstractions nor an invention as the villains who practice them suggest. They produce fatal victims. In Brazil, there are almost 300 murders a year.”
Not all the reaction was compassionate, though. A Turkish newspaper aligned with the current ruling party published a headline that called gay people «deviant.» Others have translated it as «perverted.»
Others noted that, if you searched for it, you could find people celebrating the attack in various corners of the Internet.
For many activists, it was a moment to point out links between homophobia and Islamophobia. People who belong to both the LGBT and Muslim communities argue that hate is hate, no matter who it targets.
Let’s address homophobia & transphobia everywhere incl Muslim communities
Lets address Islamophobia everywhere incl queer communities.
— Farrah Khan (@farrah_khan) June 12, 2016
( This last messages taken from Washington Post article )
Shame on all homophobic & transphobic people. Shame on all humanophobics!
Shame on all governments around the world who let this happen in their countries. The same leaders are now condemning (rightful so) the vicious in Orlando.
Shame on the misconception and distorted concept of freedom in the US and neoliberalism which creates «freedom acts» for guns everywhere in the society.
And shame on all of us who let small drop of prejudices and biases fall on people who just are not exactly like we want them to be in the daily life.
I wrote a couple of poems to those who was murdered at Utøya in Norway 22nd of July 2011. To all the very sad funerals which took place in weeks and months after the terrible. I use them again here, but have changed some words in them only.
To all who where meaningless killed in Orlando – We will never forget them!
The dead
The dead are in our sorrow
The dead are us near
The dead are our
sisters, our brothers, our friends,
our tears in empty space in universe
Future was taken away from them
Future was stolen from them
Future became their unknowned place,
where many, many will miss them,
but their ideas will keep on living
Our dead lives inside us
Our dead are in the words
Our dead are in the great loss,
but also the hope from them for change,
to another and better world
This is our duty to every sister,
every brother we now miss:
Do what you can for change,
this we do owe them,
this we do owe the future!
The sting of revenge
Someone saw with blindness on “weed”
who and where a plant should stand
Now each have to sit down on grass
see the many colors, catch sounds
Someone saw on means to use
to clean away what seams “strange”
Each and everyone have to sow the earth
lots of seeds will then grow
Someone thinks many flowers
are to much for their head
We‘ll answer them with this promise:
Never again the sting of revenge,
never again the 11th of June in Orlando!
Ivar Jordre
