Of course straight people can be homophobic. But there is a tradition of people who are most vocal against homosexuals being gay people from conservative religious backgrounds. Former US senator Larry Craig is one example off the top of my head.
If he did it because of his Islamic beliefs, it’s Islamic terrorism, and what acts of Islamic terrorism aren’t also based on hate anyway? Of course it’s a hate crime, *and *Islamic terrorism.
Pointless bickering by post 19… it’s the Dope.
I object to the pronoun, “he”… assuming the shooter’s gender is contrary to modern enlightened sensibility. :rolleyes:
Just to clarify, I have zero problems with homosexuality. My problem is with conservative religious traditions, whether Christian, Islamic, or any other, that teach that homosexuality is a sin.
Excellent point. When 50+ are killed by a Muslim extremist, it’s outrageous that Christians should be able to evade blame.
Holy.
Fuck.
:eek:
The conservatives, especially the extremists, are going to have a hell of a time with this one. There’s no one to support except the NRA.
This is just getting worse by the hour.
The death toll is only going to rise in the coming hours too. No doubt the gun filth will say this could have been avoided had the other club patrons been armed.
Were all the deaths due to the gunman or were there casualties in the firefight with the police?
Plus an explosion was initially reported.
Maybe someone should ask the Pink Pistols for their view?
C’mon if we learned anything from Benghazi, it’s the vital importance of rushing to judgement on these things. We can’t waste time looking for facts; we need to reach a conclusion within the same span of time it takes to watch an episode of Law and Order or NCIS.
Not necessarily so. Muslims do not “hate” anybody, any more than Christians do. You seem to be taikng the position that a person embracing the Islamic faith does so out of hatred, or that learning hatred is a preached tenet of Islam. Which I don’t think is a supportable position, any more so than that Christians can be taught to hate by people quoting scripture.
It may have been a “hate crime”, depending on whether the perpetrator “hated” the group that he specifically targeted. And there are plenty of Christians who hate, with equal venom, the same group. But if so, the fact that there was a target group removes it from the definition of “terrorism”, whose intended victims are random civilians. The two cannot co-exist, according to their own definitions. If you hate your victims, it’s a hate crime. If they are random citizens, it is terrorism.
Simply throwing around words like hate, Muslim, terrorism, does not illuminate the issue. Especially if one is starting out from his own position of hate, and is trying to justify it.
Nice argument, but quite a few “Christian” groups including churches *do *openly teach hate, using their interpretation of scripture. As do any number of Islamic groups, which I’m sure is your point. Neither side holds any moral high ground here. For every humble, pious member of each faith there’s one somewhere who genuinely believes [insert prophet here] hates [insert foul term for them other people here]. And that Jehomed is whispering in their ear to do something about it… from rant in the streets to murdering the sinners.
About the only way this can get worse is if the shooter had a Trump t-shirt on under his camo.
A hate crime inspired by a religious indoctrination is not a bizarre pairing.
Before we place blame everywhere, from Islam to Christianity, closeted gays to homophobic straights, from terrorism to hate crime, could we simply mourn the lost and injured and their loved ones and maybe wait for a little more information to come in first? I bet that, despite the delay for facts, they’ll still be plenty of blame to go around in time.
I preedict that the right and left will each interpret or promote a narrative about this attack in a different way.
The right will focus on the “He was an Islamic terrorist” angle.
The left will focus on the “Gay people were attacked” angle.
There’s enough material for everyone to spin their desired narrative.
What the hell is there to illuminate? It isn’t hate, isn’t based on Islamic beliefs and isn’t terrorism? Wow. Please, do illuminate.
Where do you get this sort of definition from? I can’t disagree more. It is perfectly possible for terrorism to entail the killing of specifically targeted people.