I listened to the news late in the day on Sunday. I had just finished writing a column about Thanksgiving, when I read about the shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs. Club Q is a LGBTQ+ nightclub. The gunman, a 22-year-old male armed with two guns, killed five people and injured 25 others. Instead of speaking about Thanksgiving, I will express how I feel about our collective loss.
Why is a hate crime like this still happening in the 21st century? Why are we still allowing emotionally imbalanced people to carry guns and terrorize people who are just having a good time in a club?
The gunman had been arrested in 2021 after a bomb threat incident. In other words, he was known as someone who should not have any kind of firearms. I don’t care if someone like him has a right to bear arms—someone like me has a right to live. He should not have the capacity to inflict this amount of pain on the parents, siblings, extended family, significant others, and friends of the victims. To a lesser extent, we are also affected by this terrorist’s act of hate. We grieve for our country, for the loss of life, for the loss of freedom that results from an act like this. We are hindered by having to be constantly vigilant of our surroundings, feeling unsafe, unable to fully express ourselves for fear of being hurt. Our hearts are broken for the people who suffered these tremendous losses. Our country is hampered by the incapability of finding solutions to the issue of gun violence that continues to plague every community.
We must not forget that the motive for the crime seems to be hate towards the LGBTQ+ community, just like the 2016 attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Targeting people for who they are is unacceptable. Our tradition teaches us that every human being is created in God’s image, that we are all unique individuals, and that whoever destroys a person is as they destroyed a whole world. I do not understand how a person can attack another person because of their sexual orientation. And yet it seems that when financial and political interests are involved, the humanity of the people targeted is forgotten. Take, for example, the soccer World Cup that is happening right now in Qatar. While the Emir proclaims that everyone is welcomed at the games, FIFA, the international organization responsible for the competition is threatening to give a yellow card to any team captain using the 1 love armband (that is a captain’s armband with a rainbow heart with the number 1 and the word love, expressing solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community). A player that has two yellow cards in one game is ejected from that game and is not allowed to play the next. The soccer players cannot express their opinion about the intolerance of the host nation. This attitude betrays a lack of concern for the rights of individuals. For an international organization to not allow an expression of love and solidarity, and to punish instead the people who are protesting intolerance, is shameful. The intolerance snowballs into hate, and soon becomes a license in the minds of imbalanced individuals to act with violence against those they hate.
I mourn the victories of hate and intolerance in this world. I am saddened by the many losses that we are experiencing. I will speak out and demand justice for those whose lives were torn by the ravages of hate and violence, for those who are losing freedoms, for those feeling unsafe. And I will continue to spread love, compassion, harmony and beauty to everyone around me, in an effort to heal this world, one soul at a time.