Keith Stewart puts his anger and sadness about the Orlando shooting into perspective—not just for himself, but for the good of mankind.
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I am the guy who writes funny things. I like to laugh, and I like to make others laugh. But not today. Today, I don’t feel like laughing. Today is not a day for humor. Today, I am angry. Today, I am furiously heartbroken.
I am heartbroken that forty-nine more Americans have been slaughtered by a coward with a gun that can fire forty-five rounds per minute. The exact type of gun that helped kill twenty-six children in a Sandy Hook School, twelve people in an Aurora movie theater, ten people at a Roseburg community college, and fourteen more people at a San Bernadino office party. The exact type of gun that needs no license to own or purchase in the state of Florida. The exact type of gun that has no three-day waiting period–or any waiting period at all–in order to purchase in the state of Florida.
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I am heartbroken because the Americans who were shot down this time were my people. They were my community. My brothers and sisters. The LGBT community has long faced the brutalities of ignorance and intolerance. For so, so many years, we were forced to suffer in silence. No one wanted to acknowledge homophobic violence was a reality. The only cases were random. The gay victim shouldn’t have hit on the crazy straight man, thus causing him to go temporarily insane enough to attack him and later plead the Gay Panic Defense (A. Real. Freaking. Legal. Defense.) When I was bashed in downtown Lexington in 2008, the media didn’t care. Heck, the police barely did. They only came because an ambulance had been called to transport my unconscious body to the hospital. But now that over one hundred of us are either dead or barely surviving, we can’t be ignored, right?
Wrong. The media has deemed to portray this in a way that will stir up the most emotion. The way that will rally the troops, and make the villagers light their torches–by calling it a terrorist attack by an ISIS militant. By telling us it could have happened anywhere, at any night club, or even at one of Orlando’s famous theme parks. By refusing to say what the killer’s father has said the entire time since the slaughter: his son was mad because he saw two men kissing in front of his child a few weeks earlier. He couldn’t stand homosexuals. He wanted them dead. He had listened to all the right-wing politicians and evangelical preachers spew prejudice from their pulpits for years. He finally decided to practice what they all were teaching.
When I finally was strong enough to come out of the closet, I left my small Kentucky hometown that had taught me there was something very wrong with being homosexual. I headed for the city of Orlando. In Orlando, I found a vibrant community of like-minded people who had broken away from their own hometowns and oppressive upbringings. For the first time in my life, I was able to be myself. I was free to date, love, dance, hang out with anyone I chose. Most of the time, all that happened in Orlando’s night clubs. In fact, Orlando’s gay bars were the first place I ever held a man’s hand in public without looking over my shoulder out of fear. Those clubs were my safe haven.
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I know in my heart there was at least one young man in Pulse Saturday night who had moved to Orlando from some small Southern town. He had been taught his entire life that no one would love him if he were gay. His church had taught him he was Hell-bound for having the feelings he was born feeling. Now, in the City Beautiful, he had found a new family of accepting friends, and he was finally free. He was in the one spot he safely could be himself. He hugged and kissed his friends. He laughed and danced to the music. For the first time in his life, he was truly happy. That guy was me twenty years ago in the same club. Neither of us ever dreamed that this newly found Heaven could be so violently torn apart by the bullets of a madman.
So, nothing funny from me today. Just heartbreak. And a request. Remember June 12th as an act of terror, sure. Because it is one. But also remember it as a specific attack on the LGBT community. If we continue to allow our politicians and religious leaders to spread homophobia and ignorance, there will be more to come. Many changes are needed, from policies and laws to attitudes and behaviors. Can we as a country do it? Are we willing? Time will tell, but there will be about fifty funerals next week in Orlando, and for the memory of those victims I pray to God we do.
Photo Credit: www.newscentralasia.net
Great article.