Mass shooting in Orlando Nightclub

Yggr of Asgard wrote: »

I'm sure that President Obama has more insight into this than most of us non-Muslims giving that for a long period he studied the holy book of the Qur'an.

But for me it does not matter, if it's the Qur'an, The Bible, The 12 Books of Scientology or some other manuscript which is quoted as inspiration for crazy people. Religion is too often used as an excuse for action, even if there are other reasons.

This is the usual deflection bullshyte and actually is just excusing the excesses of islam and some of it's adherents.
No other religion at the moment is fostering such hatred and slaughter, but yet every religion is dragged into the dock.

Has any scientologists engaged in mass slaughter (Tom Cruise videos don't count) ?

When was the last christian extremist that engaged in wholesale slaughter?
Oh yeah Brevik, how many since then ?

How many catholic priests have been telling their parishioners to hate and kill non believers over the last few years ?

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Indeed.

We need ordinary Muslims to wrest control from the extremists as happened in Christianity. It took a few hundred years but once the ol printing press got fired up things sped up dramatically so now that we have instant communication...

Except is it the exact opposite in fact.

Fundamentalist islam is using our modern almost realtime mass communications to spread it's evil and it's hatred and it is bloody well succeeding.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

One observation is that I can't help but think that painting all Muslims as lunatic jihadists who want to destroy the West is unhelpful and downright counter-productive in this regard.

Of course it is not all, but a damn sizable proportion are what used to be termed on this island "fellow travellers".
Hell in Brussels you had riots when a mass murderer was arrested.

Look at polls asking muslims if they supported ISIS.
It is fooking scary to think what a sizable proportion of the muslim population world wide supports the crazies.
Look at the worldwide reaction to slaughter of cartoonists and then look at the reaction to the cartoons.

As one poster was fond of reminding us they were waiting for the mass muslim protests claiming that ISIS was not speaking for Islam and how they were denigrating the prophet. :rolleyes:

Tumbleweed.

Joeytheparrot wrote: »

I can't speak for Bannansidhe here but I am challenging how LGBT people are being used by some with faux concern. And I also feel the main agenda of some of these people is not to support LGBT people at all but to pursue islamophobic agendas.

If I am being honest I see it like the attack in Paris nightclub, as an attack on totally innocent people trying to live their lives as best they can who are targeted because they are seen as being part of the decadent West and whose lifestyles don't fit into some archaic misogynistic backwards mindset set in 8th century Arabia.

The thing I find unbelievable is the outlook of members of the LGBT community and feminists who jump to excuse and support islam, the very religion which makes no bones about it's views on both communities.
I fear islam because I don't see this moderate islam you and others appear to be always telling us about.

I just see a religion where the fundamentalists are setting the pace and direction.

shedweller wrote: »

Regardless of whether his was a homophobic attack or not, i think it's fair to say that it was an islamic attack (jihad) on western people/values. And one of many in recent times.
Could we not get conveniently bogged down on the pointless argument of it being homophobic or not. The bigger picture here is a crazy ideology wants to take over our western way of life. And spare me the "i know plenty of islamic people. Should i be scared too?" nonsense. It takes only a few of them to cause a lot of damage to us AND bring all of them into line. So they all sing from the same sheet whether they carry ak's or not.

Why is the Islam connection more important than the homophobic element?
Homophobia seems to be a bigger drive for the attack by the looks of it.
The end of your post is pure madness. They don't all sing from the same hymn sheet which has been proven repeatedly over the last few years.

Jack Killian wrote: »

If he drove 90 miles to somewhere he'd never been, maybe.

If he drove 90 miles to somewhere he frequented fairly regularly, then surely it's a valid question ?

Ever hear of Roy Cohn?

Cohn was Senator Joe McCarthy's right hand man in the Red Scare years.
Cohn 'specialized' in 'finding' homosexuals and ensuring their lives were destroyed.
Cohn was homosexual.
He died of AIDS aged 59 in 1986.

That is how homophobia works.

A Gay person whose religious, cultural, family background tells them constantly they are 'sick', 'pervert', 'abomination' takes that message of hate on board. Some get through it. Some do not and believe it completely.

They accept as fact that they are an abomination.
They try to get 'cured'
and/or they try to pretend
and/or they try to destroy it but destroying other gay people who are 'infecting' them or by killing themselves or substance abuse.

Add into this already toxic mix a kind of hyper masculinity - being gay is 'sissy'/'fairy'/'feminine' - not a real man.

What is a macho man to do?
What could be more manly than taking a few guns and shooting the whole gay thing down knowing you would die too?
And maybe your god would even reward you for killing the abominations.


How many anti-Gay pastors and politicians have turned out to be gay themselves? Who knows how many lives their words and deeds destroyed...

my friend wrote: »

Are you having a laugh?

Shooter in Bataclan homosexual, shooter in Orlando homosexual and instead of trying to understand how the homosexual community alienated them you seek to blame society as a whole?

Get off the stage

You're seriously trying to blame gays for the worst atrocity to happen to them in recent history. No you get off the stage. I don't think you even realise how hurtful a statement that is.

Jack Killian wrote: »

If the case re Roy Cohn was proven, then fine.
If the facts back up your opinion on the motives for this, then fine.

All I'm saying is that I'm keeping an open mind; I'm even keeping it open on the supposed Islamic angle, because nothing has been proven and that suits an agenda too.

I think it's too simplistic to suggest one particular motive. There's definitely an Islamic angle but it's not everything.
Normally when people look at radicals in ISIS they see people who got drawn in and drank the cool aid. ISIS is like a cult. This guy in florida was bat **** crazy beforehand. He was probably inspired by ISIS but I think it was more of an outlet for the craziness that was there already.

Jack Killian wrote: »

If the case re Roy Cohn was proven, then fine.
If the facts back up your opinion on the motives for this, then fine.

All I'm saying is that I'm keeping an open mind; I'm even keeping it open on the supposed Islamic angle, because nothing has been proven and that suits an agenda too.

StewartGriffen however dismissed outright that there was homophobia at play - I was responding to him.
He has since pulled back a bit from his initial "I don't believe this was a homophobic attack."

I think homophobia, Islamic extremism, right-wing Christian political attacks on LGBTQI rights, lack of gun control, frequency of mass killings making them almost 'normal', and a whole lot of rage combined in one mentally unbalanced man and he went on a murder/suicide spree.

StewartGriffin wrote: »

My point is that the Pulse club, where he was a regular, was by far his best option for inflicting mass casualties.
You assume it was a homophobic attack.
You might be wrong.

There was a security worker who worked at a different nightclub in Orlando who had a friend die at Pulse.
She said they would pat people down at their nightclub and would regularly find guns on people who were then not allowed entry. She thinks they had a gun in them for security reasons but said one wouldn't know if it was something more.
She said at Pulse there was no such security so it would be easy to walk in with weapons hidden on you.

12Phase wrote: »

I think people are being a bit harsh here about Owen Jones.

Nah. Not really.

12Phase wrote: »

I saw the piece and the other panelist and the presenter kept trying to broaden it out to the widest possible way. I actually they were trying to push a line that it didn't matter that the people were gay in a very positive way as in "this is an attack on all of us" rather than "this is an attack on a specific community". However, it came across as really dismissive and I don't think that was the intention. Just two people on totally different wavelengths really.

I think you're quite right. They weren't shouting him down. They weren't even disagreeing with him. I think they were having difficulty discerning the exact point he was trying to make. And he wasn't making it very clearly, which is a bit of a damning indictment for someone who describes himself as a journalist talking about a subject for which he presumably has a great depth of both knowledge and feeling.

Instead he resorted to throwing his arms about and wearing the incredulous outraged look of a footballer appealing for a penalty. (And with similar justification)

The ultimate irony was that he stomped off just as the interviewer appeared to be bringing the conversation back to his, Jones', line of thinking by introducing a statement from a gay advocacy group Stonewall.

He came across as a petulant spoiled brat to me.

12Phase wrote: »

From what I have ever seen of him, Owen isn't one of those kinds of talking head, chattering class types. He's an actual activist and quite an effective one. He's very passionate about what he's talking about and what he says. It's not just "look at me" stuff.

To me it just looked like he wasn't in the humour for a vacuous chat about the papers and a polite little conversation about the Queen's Birthday

He was given ample opportunity to make his points and was just about to be given another one right up his street (it seems to me) when he flounced off.

Sorry. That's very "look at me" stuff.

12Phase wrote: »

To be perfectly honest, I rather see a bit of passion and people actually prepared to have an argument than some polite after dinner chat.

I wholeheartedly agree! But you can't have an argument if you're not in the room.

Actually I'm a bit disappointed with the steep decline in the calibre of gay-equality ambassadors. The likes of David Norris were courageous, witty, intelligent and articulate. And he did the heaviest lifting in terms of removing outdated discriminatory and restrictive laws on gay people.

The likes of Jones and Panti seem only to have a talent for throwing their teddy bears in the corner.

And BTW just to bring it back to the main story, kudos to the people who gathered in Dublin last night for a vigil to express solidarity with the victims of Orlando and their families. Especially the excellent choir. Lovely performance.