Mass Casualty Attack on Orlando Gay Bar

Discussion in 'World Events' started by Yazata, Jun 12, 2016.

  1. Yazata Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,902
    I think that there are a few Christian terrorists in the US at the present time, but they are few and far between. (The FBI certainly needs to keep an eye on them.) It might have been different many centuries ago, before all the cultural changes associated with modernity.

    The difference with Islam is that in many parts of the Islamic world, the majority of the population believes that blasphemers, apostates, adulterers and homosexuals should be put to death. In the traditional environments, those aren't considered radical beliefs at all, they are mainstream since they are justified in cultural tradition and by their Islamic clerics. I don't think that most Americans or Europeans know (or care) how strong and widespread hardcore Salafist legalism is in the Islamic world these days.

    In the West we tend to imagine that there's an inevitable wave of liberal 'progress' blowing through all of history in the same direction that our own civilization has evolved, driven by education and enlightenment into an ever-better future. But the wind in much of the Islamic world is blowing in precisely the opposite direction. People in much of the Islamic world believe that the best way to advance into the future and to sweep away the endemic corruption that surrounds them is to return to the God-given traditions of their ancestors. In the Muslim world, these fundamentalist tendencies are often perceived as reform movements and are embraced by educated people.

    There's a lot of that. Many of the young American (and European) Muslims who are trying to join Islamic state are second generation. I think that alienation has a lot to do with it. Their parents came to America in hopes of finding economic opportunity and getting rich, but with no intention of compromising their strict Islamic culture. So that culture is taught and enforced in the home. Leaving the American born kids caught between two worlds, the world of their school and classmates, and the world of their family and Muslim community. In many cases they feel that they don't fit into American culture, that they are outsiders and don't belong. Despite their being born here, Americans are still 'them'. So many of these kids grasp ever tighter to the traditions that they identify with 'us', with the thing that makes them distinctive, with Islam. It's a failure of assimilation.

    I don't think that public schools are in a position to forcibly assimilate kids from very different cultural backgrounds, especially if the kids and their families are resistant to it. That isn't going to happen.

    Today assimilation is a dirty word. In some minds it suggests cultural hegemonism and failure of tolerance, I guess. So the melting-pot has gone cold. Everyone (except culturally American non-Jewish whites) is supposed to remain separate and apart in their own little racial-cultural-ethnic communities. Instead of a single nation ('nation' has become a dirty word) the country is supposed to be a collection of foreign colonies where everyone is identified with wherever they or their ancestors came from. Yet somehow (this is the magical part) they are all supposed to share the same distinctly modern Western values like personal liberty, emancipation of women, gay rights, non-violence and whatever. That's where the failures of assimilation are most obvious.
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2016
    madanthonywayne likes this.
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    Or murder 77 kids at a youth retreat because foreigners. Or blow up an abortion clinic.
    Nothing indicates he had a "loathing for liberal culture." He was a closeted homosexual, and was conflicted about that. He took out that conflict in a shooting.
    Nothing at all. The tradition of accepting people you like, and hating people you do not (and bemoaning how they are destroying the country) has a long history in the US.

    Ben Franklin wrote essays about how the Germans and Dutch refused to melt, and how the "stupid, swarthy Germans" were destroying the country. We'd all be speaking German within the decade, he predicted. And - they weren't even white! "Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion?" This was back in 1751.

    Later it was the turn of the Irish. During the Potato Famine of the late 1800's, millions of Irish came to the US. And they got the same reception. "[The Irish] do not devote themselves to the manufacture of flax or wool, nor to the practice of any mechanical or mercantile act. Dedicated only to leisure and laziness, this is a truly barbarous people. . . This is a filthy people, wallowing in vice. They indulge in incest, for example in marrying – or rather debauching – the wives of their dead brothers." They were drawn in cartoons as apes, in an attempt to bolster the claim that they were not as evolved as white people. "No Irish Need Apply" was a common note in job notices. Everyone knew that they were drunken, lazy criminals who refused to "melt" in the melting pot of the US.

    Later it was the Catholics. The KKK was formed, in part, to fight Catholicism, which was "incompatible with Democracy." Oregon outlawed parochial schools hoping to shut down the Catholic schools that bred "sedition and dissent." Catholics could not be trusted in any position of power, it was explained, because "the peculiar relation in which a faithful Catholic stands and the absolute allegiance he owes to a 'foreign sovereign' who does not only 'claim' supremacy also in secular affairs as a matter of principle and theory but who, time and again, has endeavored to put this claim into practical operation."

    Today it's the Muslim's turn.

    But don't worry - the US's "toleration of most and calumniation of the rest" is still going strong, as it has for over 200 years.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,323
    Good reminder of a clarification or distinction often forgotten. That the steady references which Western political leaders make to peace-loving [non-bigoted] muslims, as if they're the mainstream, could be correct from the standpoint that an anti-gay point of view is not necessarily crouched in hate. It's really an expression of kindness on their part to disapprove of gay orientation. We can set aside for the majority of muslims this "death sentence" preference advocated by radical clerics because even most Islamic countries don't go especially out of their way to track down LGBT folk -- who remain private -- and test them like Islamic State does to see if they have flying abilities like Superman.

    NOTE: As part of formal discourse and civil inter-community slash international pretense, the "peace-loving" [non-bigoted] references made by Western government officials can also embrace factions of other religions when the latter are not actively being political thorns in the side of such leaders on a particular day. Islam is being distinguished from amidst the overall group of religions in this instance because that's what the matter at hand revolved around. Any "disapproval of gay orientation as an expression of kindness" might also be applicable to these other belief systems if in the course of digging around in their sacred texts passages come to light that can be converted into such hay. Or they feature clerics either domesticated or feral promoting such, regardless of scripture.

    - - - - - - - -

    "Muslims generally believe that homosexuality stems from conditioning or exposure, and that a person who feels homosexual urges should strive to change. It is a challenge and struggle to overcome, just as others face in their lives in different ways. In Islam, there is no legal judgment against people who feel homosexual impulses but do not act upon them.

    In many Muslim countries, acting upon homosexual feelings -- the behavior itself -- is condemned and subject to legal punishment. The specific punishment varies among jurists, ranging from jail time or flogging, to the death penalty. In Islam, capital punishment is only reserved for the most grievous crimes which hurt society as a whole. Some jurists view homosexuality in that light, particularly in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen.

    Arrest and punishment for homosexual crimes, however, are not frequently carried out. Islam also places a strong emphasis on an individual's right to privacy. If a "crime" is not carried out in the public sphere, it is largely overlooked as being a matter between the individual and God."
    http://islam.about.com/od/islamsays/a/homosexuality.htm

    - - - - - - -

    http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Islam_and_Homosexuality

    Many apologists have attempted to shift the blame for this Muslim hostility towards homosexuality onto "the adoption of European Victorian attitudes by the new Westernized elite."

    However, this explanation falls short. Within the context of Islamic thought, this attitude originated from the Prophet Muhammad, and since he is considered by all mainstream Muslims to be the Uswa Hasana (the perfect example) we find that the majority of Muslims still consider this harsh treatment of homosexuals to be justified.

    Muhammad himself had stated, “If you find anyone doing as Lot's people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done.” He even went so far as to condemn the “appearance” of homosexuality, when he cursed effeminate men and masculine women and ordered his followers to "Turn them out of your houses." This ruling on homosexuals was naturally adopted by his later successors.

    The father of Aisha and Muhammad’s first successor, Abu Bakr, had a homosexual burned at the stake. The fourth Rightly-Guided Caliph, Muhammad’s son-in-law Ali, ordered homosexuals to be stoned, and even had one thrown from the minaret of a mosque. These actions quite obviously pre-date any sort of Western influence on Islamic thought.

    According to Shaykh Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid: "The spread of homosexuality has caused man diseases which neither the east nor the west can deny exist because of them. Even if the only result of this perversion was AIDS – which attacks the immune system in humans – that would be enough."

    Even by moderate Muslims (who are found primarily among the tiny 3% of the world's Muslims living in "more-developed regions"), homosexuality is seen as something that is vile and unacceptable. For example, a Gallup survey carried out in early 2009 found that British Muslims have zero tolerance for Homosexuality. Not even a single British Muslim interviewed believed that homosexual acts were morally acceptable. Also according to a Zogby International poll of American Muslims taken in November and December of 2001, a massive 71 percent opposed "allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally." Another worrying statistic to be found among Muslims in the UK, is that although they comprise just 2% of the total British population, they commit 25% of all anti-Homosexual crimes.

    So, with the rise of Islam in the UK and the rest of the world, we also see the inadvertent return to the morality of seventh-century Arabia, with Muslim gangs on the streets of England carrying out violent attacks on gays and mosques labeled as “moderate” calling for the murder of homosexuals at the hands of their congregation.

    If we look to secular Indonesia, we see that due to pressure from the growing conservative Islamic communities, some local authorities have now been given the right to use Islamic laws, which have successfully criminalized homosexuality. Also in Hindu-majority India, attempts to move forward and decriminalize homosexuality are being hindered by Islamic clerics claiming "Homosexuality is an offence under Sharia Law and haram (prohibited) in Islam," and that "Legalisation of homosexuality is an attack on Indian religious and moral values," a statement not to be taken lightly, when coming from religious leaders of Islam.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. timojin Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,252

    Hey you forgot about Bohemian in Chicago , They were considered scumm , The Chicago fire was to get rid of Bohemian slums.
     
  8. timojin Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,252
    Very interesting So the shooter carried out their Islamic punishment . So should we worry, that this their business
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Values

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Yesterday, Amanda Marcotte↱ explained:

    Within hours of the news spreading that there had been a massacre at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, it became clear that conservatives needed to minimize the possibility that this was the anti-gay hate crime that it looked like. Republican pundits and politicians got to work trying to imply the choice of a target was unimportant or arbitrary, refusing to acknowledge that Pulse was a gay bar or that most of the victims were queer.

    The move, while cynical, makes sense. If Republicans can trick people into thinking this was some kind of generic Islamic assault on the West, then they can run the terrorists-are-coming-for-you script that has worked so well for them politically in the past. But to admit that it might have been Omar Mateen's anti-gay beliefs that motivated this this is political poison.

    After all, it's not just fundamentalist Islam that is anti-gay. Fundamentalist Christianity is, too, and if anti-gay religious teachings can cause a Muslim to reach for his gun, they can surely do the same to a Christian. Indeed, hate crimes against LGBT people are common in this country, and most of them are not being committed by Muslims.

    All of which, in turn, is going to make it a lot harder for conservatives to demagogue against gay rights to rally the troops.

    If we just run with the basics, setting aside all else, the question has to do with whether America's foremost anti-gay hate organization can find a way to exploit anti-LGBTQ violence; it is a very interesting scene to witness. Ted Cruz↱, for instance, arguing that one must support homophobes in order to "stand for LGBT". Yes, it's kind of expected; this is how shameless people behave. To the other, though, it is disgraceful behavior reminding the obvious point that "family values" is merely right-wing "P.C." for "bigotry".

    One thing about Republicans is that they do, in fact, generally fulfill their awful potential. To wit, knowing the American political discourse, it is easy enough to project the basic objection to Marcotte's statement that Republicans are "refusing to acknowledge that Pulse was a gay bar or that most of the victims were queer". The Salon author, for her part, points to Mark Joseph Stern↱ of Slate, who wrote, Sunday morning:

    There are many more examples of aggressively anti-gay politicians tweeting about the Pulse shooting, but one common thread ties them together: None of them mention that the shooting targeted, or even involved, the LGBTQ community. Indeed, not a single congressional Republican who tweeted about the shooting mentioned LGBTQ people. That stands in stark contrast to President Barack Obama's clear assertion that "shooter targeted a nightclub" where "lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender people ... came together to be with friends, to dance, sing, and live," and "to raise awareness and speak their minds and advocate for their civil rights."

    That is to say, we could always flatspin down that stupid spiral in which we parse asssertions of grammatical precision; they didn't "refuse" as Marcotte suggests, but simply failed to cover every last point in those confusing times, and so on.

    Except there's always a Republican willing to settle the issue for us. Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX32), for instance:

    Asked on Tuesday afternoon whether the massacre of 49 people at an Orlando gay nightclub changes his opposition to a pro-LGBT bill, House Rules Committee chairman Pete Sessions (R-TX) denied the venue had anything to do with the gay community whatsoever. "It was a young person's nightclub, I'm told. And there were some [LGBT people] there, but it was mostly Latinos," told reporters, according to National Journal. Sessions has stood in firm opposition to the Maloney Amendment, an attachment that would bar federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT individuals.

    (The Daily Beast↱)

    Mr. Sessions pretty much fulfills Mr. Stern's headline that, "Republicans are erasing LGBTQ People from their own tragedy".

    The difference, though, is astounding; like I said, the American community stands for the gay community. This is important. And all I can think right now is that everybody deserves this. No excuses, no (ahem!) accidentally calling mass murder an accident. What the gay community gets in these harrowing days is what every American community should get when it's their turn.

    And this ... is ... important.

    Because I can think of other communities who are going to need this in the coming days. Who's next? We know the hit is coming, so who's next, and if it's black people or women, are they going to do the stupid bits making excuses and trying to exploit for dishonest politics like we did with South Carolina and Colorado? And if they do, are Americans going to brush it off like they are for the gay community?

    Whether we wish to blame this mass murder on international terrorism or a mix of the closet, guns, homophobia, and adoption of an antisocial emblem―say what we want about this one, but Muslim heritage says nothing about the six-two, stick-skinny, floppy-haired, young white Christian I know who, sure, has every reason to complain, but if the family was to be believed before they actually heard the word and started changing their description, is presently radicalizing and adopting corrupted Islam while in Ecuador whereas this time last year he looked forward to joining the Marine Corps―the Orlando Massacre is at root a matter of prejudicial hatred. And right now, when when sick values like those of Mr. Sessions speak their voice, the rest of America simply brushes them aside. Our society will not at this time tolerate mitigating excuses like we heard in the wake of Mother Emanuel and Planned Parenthood.

    So let us double-check, because Steve Benen↱ explained it as simply as possible:

    Let's set the record straight: the mass shooting took place at a nightclub called Pulse, which describes itself as "the hottest gay bar in Orlando." The night of the massacre, it was hosting a Latino night, but that doesn't change the fact that the venue caters to an LGBT audience.

    For Sessions to pretend otherwise is bizarre. The Texan's office told TPM the published quotes are correct, but "taken out of context without the background information." Sessions' spokesperson said, "What my boss meant to say was that there weren't only gay individuals at the club but people from all walks of life were present."

    Perhaps, though that's not what the House Republican said. What's more, the broader legislative context relates to Sessions' opposition to an amendment that would ban anti-LGBT discrimination among federal contractors. The point, in other words, is determining whether the Orlando murders might change Sessions' perspective about preventing employment discrimination.

    And it's against this backdrop that the Texas lawmaker said he doesn't necessarily consider the gay nightclub a gay nightclub.

    Is there any part of Sessions' gaffe that is unclear?

    Because business as usual among Republicans is business as usual among Republicans. These are the vaunted "family values" we hear so much about. And it really wasn't so long ago; I cannot properly describe the difference it makes knowing this hatred isn't selling right now.

    And I cannot tell you how important it is that everybody have this comfort come the day it's their turn.

    Nor can I properly comprehend just why it would be so important to withhold.

    Yet some try, and perhaps 12 June 2016 is the day we finally say no more.

    Every American community deserves our American solidarity. Let our weary nation have this at least; let this be our American Way.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Benen, Steve. "GOP lawmaker says Orlando shooting site wasn’t a gay club". msnbc. 15 June 2016. msnbc.com. 15 June 2016. http://on.msnbc.com/25Xlke5

    Marcotte, Amanda. "The narrative falls apart: Evidence that Omar Mateen was in the closet undermines GOP framing of the Orlando shooting". Salon. 14 June 2016. Salon.com. 15 June 2016. http://bit.ly/1S5uHv3

    Stern, Mark Joseph. "Republicans Are Erasing LGBTQ People From Their Own Tragedy". Slate. 12 June 2016. Slate.com. 15 June 2016. http://slate.me/1VZl5Zz

    The Daily Beast. "Anti-Gay GOP Congressman: Pulse Wasn’t a Gay Club". 14 June 2016. TheDailyBeast.com. 15 June 2016. http://thebea.st/1ZRcffC
     
  10. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,323
    Omar sympathized with the Islamic State micro-minority, regardless of whether or not he also ever listened to that particular radical cleric. If it turns out he was a self-hating gay man or bisexual, it is still in the context of "What would Islamic State do?". Self-hating gay man still wanted to score points for Islamic State while making a political statement that the US should back off its military assistance assault on Islamic State.

    The "peace-loving" [non-bigoted] majority would only privately disapprove of homosexuality -- as an act of kindness, thus getting around the classification of hate. (I rarely use emoticons, so it's purely up to the reader to discern sarcasm, etc.) That is, the lack of approval for gay orientation is arguably there among this "non-bigoted" muslim mainstream (just as amidst fundamentalist Christrians), but minus the death sentence attitude and Islamic State's passion for massacres.
     
    Last edited: Jun 15, 2016
  11. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Keep Talking

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    It really is easy to be upset, outraged, sickened―call it what you want―by things like this:

    A Sacramento pastor responded to the Orlando shooting that killed 49 people and injured 50 with praise, stating "they deserve what they got."

    A recording of the sermon, given by Pastor Roger Jimenez from Verity Baptist Church, was posted to YouTube the day after the tragedy.

    In the video, Jimenez preached to his congregation that they should not be grieving the homosexual victims of the shootings, comparing those killed to pedophiles.

    "Are you sad that 50 pedophiles were killed today?" asked Jimenez. "Um no. I think that's great. I think that helps society. I think Orlando, Florida, is a little safer tonight. The tragedy is that more of them didn't die. The tragedy is I'm kind of upset he didn't finish the job – because these people are predators. They are abusers."

    Jimenez went on to criticize the government, saying he wished homosexuals would be put in front of a firing squad.

    "I wish the government would round them all up, put them up against a firing wall, put the firing squad in front of them and blow their brains out," Jimenez said.


    (McCown↱)

    Terror sympathizers like Pastor Roger Jimenez are over; their power is waning. These are conservative Christian values, and it would be one thing to say this is how far those values have fallen, but this is where they've always been.

    With even Donald Trump and Ted Cruz trying to cozy up to queer, it's almost anticipatory schadenfreude to look forward to the next presidential cycle and see how many candidates rush out to the revivals in order to demonstrate their piety for the sake of being seen by others.

    In this presidential cycle, candidates playing to values voters appealed to bigots like Pastor Kevin Swanson, who really does say some of the most astounding things. In March, I noted↗ that it occurred to me to wonder just how much people are expected to put up with:

    And, you know, there is a lot I might say about Christians, or conservatives, or even conservative Christians, but that, apparently, is still too general; because while Kevin Swanson leads a small congregation, he receives enough support to continue embarrassing Christians, and Christians keep supporting his efforts, and all the while conservative Christians who probably don't appreciate being reminded what terrible human beings they are for the fact of their bigotry don't seem to have any interest in distancing themselves from bigotry.

    We might soon find an answer.

    Pastor Jimenez? The question is pretty straightforward: Is Roger Jimenez a terror sympathizer, or simply bloodthirsty in the name of Christ?

    This is all he has left.

    Imagine if we treated Christians the way we treat Muslims.

    At least then they would have a real reason to be terrified at the prospect of an entire society trying to destroy them.

    This kind of hatred is all these fake Christians have left. And it's not playing well in the marketplace.

    Yes, it really is easy to be upset, outraged, and sickened by things like this. But there is also the comfort of knowing what it represents. It represents weakness. It represents the frailty of a dying hatred.

    For the rest of American Christianity, Pastor Jimenez is at best a satan, a stumbling block sent by God; Balaam rides, and wise is the faith that attends what happens next.

    This blood sacrifice might well be our ransom.

    So I'm not sickened by Pastor Jimenez; the idea of hatred calling itself Christianity is nothing new. The thing is that he also knows the Gay Fray is over. This hatred really is all he has left.

    And it's probably all his faith ever had to begin with.

    And the American community stands with the gay community; this is more than merely a symbol of change, but change and its effect themselves. And the petulant horror of hatred scorned brings comfort, because pretty much everybody else knows exactly what such tantrums are worth.

    Roger Jimenez is shame unto Christ, and everyone knows it.

    Doesn't help the dead, but it should be of immense comfort to the living.

    And it has practical value. Roger Jimenez and his fellows should keep talking; that way we know where the danger lies.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    McCown, Kelli. "Sacramento Baptist pastor praises Orlando massacre". KHOU. 15 June 2016. KHOU.com. 15 June 2016. http://bit.ly/21mHZJX


    Correction note: I had somehow connected the KHOU report with the word "suburb" and formulated "Sacramento" as a small place in or around Houston. Of all my complaints about the Lone Star State, I must apologize to Texas on this occasion for having wrongly attributed the California version of an excremental lack of humanity otherwise known as conservative Christianity. (20 June 2016, 9.45 PDT)
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2016
  12. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,828
    His sexual orientation is still under question at this time. Remember his 911 calls when he proclaimed his allegiance to radical Islam? Also, there is suspicion that he was casing Disney World prior to the attack at the club.
     
  13. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,828
    "Forcibly assimilate" is an interesting term. I agree, they can't, but exposure both in the classroom and outside should be enough to sway 2nd generation kids.
     
  14. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,828
    Question: If killing the Orlando shooter could have saved 50 lives and prevented the injury to many more, would you have taken him down?
    The only thing that comes to mind are two drug addicts who killed a homosexual in such a manner.
    So why bring that up since it's no longer relevant?
     
  15. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    Most of all to himself, apparently. His wife knew that he had gay tendencies, and he was a regular at gay nightclubs in the area for the past ten years. He regularly used a gay dating app. Whether or not he admitted it to himself, of course, is an open question.
    Yes. He claimed allegiance to at least three radical Islamic organizations- which is odd, because two of them are at war with each other. It would be like him saying "Yeah, that's right! I am a warrior fighting with the Israelis, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the KKK!"
     
  16. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,635
    If he was in the process of shooting other people? Yes. If he was just thinking about it? No.
     
  17. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Your sympathy for terrorism is noted.
     
  18. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,828
    You ignored the question. If killing one could save many, would you?
     
  19. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    I contest the question in the context of its application. Billvon↑ offers the approximate sketch of the appropriate answer. Applied to an absolute generalization in the question, it is exactly the appropriate answer. Attending the context of your application, however, I would note that I refuse to concede the linchpin ontological sleight.

    In the end, what your question attends is one's belief, not any objective fact.

    In that context, one can construe a belief that murdering forty-nine people in a gay nightclub for the crime of being gay would save lives and prevent injury to more.

    Such outcomes are among the prominent risks of muddling aesthetics into logic; your question ends up meaningless at best.
     
  20. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    At the scene, on the spot? Sure. So?
    Christian drug addicts.
    Check the date on the photo. And the current Republican nominee for President of the United States.

    But more than that, it offers an example - a recommendation: we managed to quash a good share of the Christian terrorism in the US without mass incarceration or immigration bans or the like. We didn't get rid of it, we still have significant homophobic and anti-abortion violence and the like, but we can live with it while it fades, with vigilance. So maybe those - whatever they were - are the methods to use against the Islamic stuff.
     
  21. Bowser Namaste Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,828
    I'm thinking of Matthew Shepard. Those who killed him were drug addicts looking for more drugs. It wasn't based on Christian values. If you are referring to some other incident, please provide a link.

    I would agree with you, however, the news coming out of Europe seems to suggest otherwise. Tell me, if you could prevent Christian extremism from entering the country, would you support such an effort?
     
  22. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Parenthood

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    O! mighty Isis!

    "I hope a lot of things for my kids. On this day, I found myself hoping that my son will grow up to be a man who has friends who do things like take him to clubs. I hope he does crazy stuff there that he would be embarrassed for me to find out about. I hope he has fun. I hope he has stories. I hope he makes it out alive.

    "That last one is new."


    Amelia↱

    True, that. Not all of us are so accustomed to such proximity to the notion that each day really can be one's last.

    It's almost enough to make the joke that this is our new "Talk", but no, what happened in Orlando isn't that day; and besides, our "stay alive" lecture is different, so much so that my doctor delivered it unto me one day, all wrapped up with neat, particular anti-rape advice, as well. (I turned to my female friends because I figured they could sympathize with how strange that was, but it turns out they don't get this lecture. I mean, what the hell? I'm thinking pretty much everyone, or at least every receiving partner, should hear it; or do I have that backwards, and should I be offended? Never mind. But check this: It's even the difference between gay and bisexual; I didn't get the lecture 'til I changed my status on file.)

    But I think of the Talk in families of color. The Talk that parents of daughters either give or don't, but the rest of society will reiterate perpetually, and often viscerally.

    And then I think of our toll, a number of lives I cannot countenance, and a lifetime spent in numb obedience to mortal fear. That's just me; my symbol for The Crisis is a cartoon character.

    And I see my society. I see my community becoming something nearly unimaginable. How did we get here? Specifically, the idea of killing us off is hardly new; we've been through it before, and Orlando really, really hurts. What is different this time is that people are horrified. The Christian preacher celebrating the massacre is now the outlier; he praises Daa'ish, who in turn has found their first gay icon.

    O! mighty Isis! indeed.

    And all it takes is a closet case with a gun, and now all I can think is that before Marcia Strassman, there was Joanna Cameron.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Amelia. "When I Told My Gay Son 49 People Died For Being Just Like Him". The Huffington Post. 14 June 2016. HuffingtonPost.com. 15 June 2016. http://huff.to/1W0rLGP
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    They were sexually conflicted Christians, who did not kill him in the process of looking for more drugs, or in the manner of looking for more drugs, but for other reasons given the opportunity. And you might want to take a closer look at the actual values of American Christianity, before making bold claims. I know what they're supposed to be, but at some point we need to deal with what they are.
    What - censor the internet?

    As far as excluding entire groups for possibly containing dangerous religious fanatics from the territory of the US: we bit that apple on Plymouth Rock, and swallowed the core in the Civil War. We even give the Pope a visa - how many molested children later?

    So what means had you in mind?
     

Share This Page