There's no indication he hated "all infidels" or that he hated Jews or that his target was going to be anything but a gay target. For some reason, people seem to want to deny he was homophobic or that homophobia had anything to do with his attack.
Authorities Continue Investigation Into Orlando Nightclub Shooting
This was clearly terrorism - violence in pursuit of a political message. But this was a hate crime, too. Mateen's father said his son had a problem with the gay community. Apparently they were out together in Miami a couple of months ago, and he saw two men kissing and got really angry.
Another clue - Mateen's ex-wife has talked about a very violent and stormy marriage. She said he used to beat her. She claimed he was unstable and bipolar. She and some of his coworkers have claimed that he was racist and homophobic. So investigators are trying to piece together all these motives and gather details of his life to try to get to the bottom of this.
Multiple people have made statements indicating
he was unstable and mentally hill as well as homophobic and racist.
He had visited the club before and used gay dating apps -
it was clearly more than just an easy target that happened to be convenient.
The Orlando Sentinel writes that "at least four regular customers" at Pulse said they had seen Mateen before.
Ty Smith told the paper that Mateen would sometimes "get so drunk he was loud and belligerent." Smith and his husband, Chris Callen, also spoke to The Canadian Post and said they had seen Mateen at Pulse multiple times. They noted that straight people patronized the club as well as gay people, and wouldn't speculate on Mateen's sexuality.
"He couldn't drink when he was at home — around his wife, or family. His father was really strict," Smith said.
"He's been going to this bar for at least three years," Callen said.
Smith and Callen decided to keep their distance from Mateen after they saw him pull a knife at Pulse and threaten another patron, they told the Canadian news agency.
Another Pulse regular, Kevin West, told the Los Angeles Times he hadn't seen Mateen at the club until shortly before the shooting. But he recognized him — from Jack'd, a gay dating and chat app.
People who act like this shooting is some kind of new thing, or pretend homophobia had nothing to do with it ignore
the long history of attacks on LGBT bars and nightclubs of which is just the latest.
Until the Pulse massacre, the most notorious act of violence against a gay bar was the burning of the UpStairs Lounge, a New Orleans gay bar, in 1973. An arsonist set fire to the bar, killing 32 people in less than 20 minutes. The vast majority of politicians declined to comment on the arson, and the Catholic Archbishop of New Orleans did not offer support to the victims. (The Archdiocese apologized for its silence in 2013.) Many news outlets ignored the story; some of those that did cover it mocked the victims for being gay. No one has ever been prosecuted for the crime. When asked about identifying the victims, the chief detective of the New Orleans Police Department responded, “We don’t even know these papers belonged to the people we found them on. Some thieves hung out there, and you know this was a queer bar.”
In 1997, “Olympic Park Bomber” Eric Robert Rudolph bombed the Otherside Lounge, a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta, later explaining that he believed “the concerted effort to legitimize the practice of homosexuality” was an “assault upon the integrity of American society.” He described homosexuality as “an aberrant sexual behavior,” and wrote that “when the attempt is made” to “recognize this behavior as being just as legitimate and normal as the natural man/woman relationship, every effort should be made, including force if necessary, to halt this effort.” In his confession, Rudolph railed against the “homosexual agenda,” including “gay marriage, homosexual adoption, hate-crime laws including gays, or the attempt to introduce a homosexual normalizing curriculum into our schools.”
Three years later, Ronald Gay opened fire on Backstreet Cafe, a gay bar in Roanoke, Virginia, killing Danny Overstreet, 43, and severely injuring six others. Gay was angry that his last name could mean “homosexual” and said God had told him to kill gay people. He called himself a “Christian Soldier working for my Lord” and testified in court that he wished he could have “killed more fags.” More recently, in 2013, Musab Mohammed Masmari set fire to Neighbours, a gay nightclub in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle, on New Year’s Eve.* Masmari had explained that he believed gay people “should be exterminated.”
Where was the outrage then? The support?
Referring to the arson attack in 1973:
“It was horrible,” Arthur Lambert, a firefighter who responded to the blaze, said in a video interview in 2013. “These people, they were literally roasted alive.”
The New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote in 2013 that the lounge was “not just any bar, but as a gay community hangout where locals could gather without fear of social persecution” at a time of intense anti-gay stigma.
Suddenly - staunch anti-gay advocates have found their missing moral backbone and are condemning violence against gays where there was silence before? No, not quite. This moral outrage is limited, very limited.
We have justifiable outrage at an Islamic Imam who states gays should be killed (enough to generate 3 or 4 threads) but stunning silence on our own Christian religious leaders who are calling for the same penalties:
Kevin Swanson News / LGBTQ Nation
California lawyer seeks to put 'shoot the gays' proposal on 2016 ballot
Pastor calls for killing gays to end AIDS
Christian leader supports death penalty for gays
Arizona Pastor: “The Government Should Use The Death Penalty On Homosexuals”
“Well, the Bible teaches that, actually, gays should be executed. Because it actually says in Leviticus 20:13 that if a man also lie with mankind as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood should be upon them.”
“But obviously, you don’t personally believe that, do you?” asked the host.
Then things got a little awkward.
“Now, obviously I believe every word of the Bible, including that. Now, I’m not saying that I would ever kill anyone, because I never would, but I believe that the government should use the death penalty on murderers, rapists, homosexuals, and…that’s what the Bible teaches, very clearly,” responded Anderson.
o, if Anderson had his way, the government would seek out and kill all homosexuals.
Further defending his bold statement, Anderson said, “I read the words of the Bible and you asked me if I believed it. Well, I wouldn’t be a Christian pastor worth my salt if I didn’t believe the Bible.”
Not to mention equally stunning silence on homophobic actions going on around the world targeting gay communities that don't seem to merit attention yet are quietly and effectively attempting to change existing laws on homosexuality into a draconian set of penalties.
American Christian Churches and Evangelical NGO's are complicit in attempting to
pass anti-gay legislation in African countries that calls for the death penalty:
Africa is at the center of this global LGBT recap, thanks to last week’s African Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. , efforts in Uganda to resurrect the Anti-Homosexuality Law thrown out by the Constitutional Court, and the introduction of a new kill-the-gays bill in Kenya.
A Kenyan “kill the gays” bill has been introduced by Edward Onwong’a Nyakeriga of the Republican Liberty Party. It would include the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” as well as lifetime jail sentences for running ‘brothels for homosexual purposes,” which Pink News suggests could be used against anyone who lives with a gay person. The Star of Kenya reports that a foreigner who commits a homosexual act would be stoned in public.
