Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people, and injured at least 53 more at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in the worst mass shooting in United States history on Saturday night/Sunday morning June 12.
On Omar Mateen’s Father’s Explanation of Motivation for His Son’s Actions
Assuming there is truth in what the gunman’s father has said to explain his son’s behavior (as reported by Huffington Post, and other news outlets):
If Omar Mateen sees two men kissing and is offended, is Mateen offended because of his religious beliefs? Maybe.
Or is Mateen offended because of the way his parents raised him? Maybe.
It seems very unlikely that Mateen’s hatred of gay people is something that developed later in life. If someone views gay people as perfectly fine as a child or young person, it is unlikely that the same person would then develop deep hatred of gay people.
If Mateen’s parents raised him according to Muslim beliefs, how much of Mateen’s hatred of gay people is rooted in the Islamic religion, and how much is rooted in the ways his parents raised him?
Very important fact: Most “lone wolf” mass shootings in America have been perpetrated by Christians or people of no particular religious affiliation.
A very small minority of mass shootings have been committed by Muslims.
Regarding acts of violence targeted toward members of the LGBT community in the United States, there has not been a historical trend or indicator pointing to a “Muslim-vs-LGBT” connection or motivation.
Outside the United States, yes, nations run by Islamic religious officials have been guilty of throwing gay people off the roofs of buildings and mutilating their bodies once they landed on the ground. Obviously, these nations are governed by people hell-bent on killing people exclusively because they are homosexual.
However, there are many non-Muslim Americans who hold deep hatred of LGBT people; those non-Muslims have perpetrated the vast majority of acts of violence against LGBT people.
On Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump’s Call for President Obama to Resign If He Doesn’t Refer to “Radical Islamic Terrorism”
“Is President Obama going to finally mention the words radical Islamic terrorism?” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter shortly before Mr. Obama’s remarks Sunday afternoon. “If he doesn’t he should immediately resign in disgrace!” (Mr. Obama called the assault “an act of terror,” but focused his remarks chiefly on the loss of lives.)
One of the reasons that calling acts “radical Islamic terrorism” is meaningless is because most acts of terror in the United States — especially those involving “lone wolf” shooters — have been perpetrated by Muslims in only a tiny minority of cases. As I said before, most of these attacks were perpetrated by people of Christian affiliation, or no religious affiliation.
Frankly, if President Obama had at some point before Sunday, June 12 — or on Sunday — used the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” doing so would not have had any impact on the action of Omar Mateen. Nor would using that phrase have any impact on anyone who is considering perpetrating an act similar to the one in Orlando.
Famously, Donald Trump has called for a temporary “total and complete ban on all Muslims entering the United States.” Such an action would have had no impact on Mateen, nor would it have prevented the events of early Sunday morning, since he was a United States citizen born in New York.
It’s also important to remember that there is no way to enforce Donald Trump’s proposed ban, since there is no way of knowing if someone entering the United States is or is not Muslim. That is what makes his proposal most ludicrous of all.
Remember, Donald Trump did not call for President George W. Bush to resign after the attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, an attack originated by Islamists which resulted in far more deaths than the incident in the Orlando nightclub Pulse.