Orlando Nightclub Murders

It is not a crime to simply hate...but it can be if that hate is put into violent action against others.  So, in looking at this terrible massacre in Orlando that happened early Sunday, when a lone gunman shot and killed 50 customers and workers at a nightclub catering to the LGBT community while wounding 53,  it isn't enough to say we need more love and less hate.  I've heard that sort of thing yesterday on TV in various forms, and I suppose that those speaking these kinds of words feel safer in doing so...after all, they don't want to offend anyone or their religion...

I remember here in Gainesville a few years ago when the pastor of a small local Christian church drew international celebrity and scorn when he staged Koran-burning events and posted anti-Islam and anti-gay signs in front of his church.  But whenever this individual was interviewed and asked about his agenda, which to most would seem to be at least in part hate-motivated, he would deny that and frame his actions in terms of his own religious beliefs.  In spite of his controversial views and expressions thereof, however, he never resorted to violence...he just publicly expressed his views, something that I think we should protect in this wonderful country of ours whose constitutional Bill of Rights contains something as valuable as the First Amendment. So hate in itself is not a crime...sometimes in fact automatically calling those who disagree with you a "hater" can possibly be interpreted as "hate" on your part...

But if you cultivate hateful views about others, be they personal vendettas against individuals who you feel have wronged you in the past or present...or against people whose beliefs and/or lifestyles offend you, and then ACT on that hate against the targets of your wrath, you don't have any business running back to your favorite religion and wrapping it around yourself, as if what you have done carries some form of legitimacy.  The perpetrator of the Orlando mass-murder, who died while committing his atrocities, was an avowed Muslim, born and raised in the United States.  He apparently was offended at open public displays of homosexuality, easily procured an automatic weapon due to the politically weakened gun laws here in this country, conveniently declared his allegiance to ISIS that would make him a hero and martyr in some quarters, and went on his killing spree...

This tragedy can also, of course, be looked at from a different perspective: the need to defeat and destroy ISIS, which uses social media to recruit terrorists living in America to kill and destroy here.  But ISIS is only the current manifestation of hateful violence that has been coming out of the Islamic world.  There is something terribly wrong here, and the leaders of that religion need to figure it out and correct it...because hate escalating into violence is an issue affecting all people and not just confined to one religion: if this keeps up others will eventually retaliate in kind...if you don't believe me then you haven't been following this year's presidential campaign very well.  That will be a sad, tragic day...but I see it coming...