Orlando

In wake of the Orlando shooting we are once again reminded that everyone on the Internet is an idiot.

I can’t even surf the web without feeling suffocated by the stupidity of others.

Dumb point I’ve seen number 1: “It’s wrong to blame Islam for mass shootings because the majority of them are made by white males.”

Uhhh no shit Sherlock. Did it ever occur to you that the majority of shootings are made by white males because the majority of America is still Caucasian? Also the majority of gun enthusiasts are males. The reason Islam is suddenly considered a meaningful causal factor is because Muslims only make up 1 percent of the population, yet an increasingly large percent of mass shootings. 

Also the stats on mass shootings are mixed because there is no consensus of what constitutes a mass shooting. Mother Jones database counts incidents with 3 or more deaths but some databases that come up on a Google search have events where 0 were killed but 4 were hit. 

When I looked up the deadliest shootings in America and quickly scanned an NPR article that listed 12, I saw that 7 occurred since 2009 (under President Obama).

3 were Muslims: Orlando, San Bernardino and Fort Hood. 2 were Asians: Virginia tech, and the Binghmton NY immigration center. 1 was a black man: Navy Yard Shooting, and 1 was a white dude: Sandy Hook.

Yes, we have a mental health crisis on our hands that relates to a lot of these shootings. I for one think that we should look at the possibility of ADHD medicine and anti depressants being harmful to young men, but I also think Obama needs to toughen up on the Muslim community and pressure them to do a better job policing their own. Obviously the Orlando shooters father and wife knew something was up and did nothing about it. 

Dumb point I’ve seen online number 2: Blaming Christians and the Crusades for violence against gays. 

I’m the first person to admit that there’s some dumbass bigots in the “Christian” community. The Westboro baptist church is an embarrassment. I can’t, however, acknowledge that Christianity is as dangerous to homosexuality as Islam. The Christian community is far from 100% supportive of the gay community. Sure, they’ll still refuse to bake you a cake for your gay wedding, but they won’t try to throw you off a rooftop in the Middle East, or hack you to death with machetes in Bangladesh. When was the last time a Christian killed 50 people in a gay club? Oh yeah, never. 

I think the LGBTQ community needs to work on a two pronged approach to the threat of violent homophobia from the Muslim community. Step one is gay Muslim outreach, which will likely be ineffective because their culture is way more hardcore than the Christian community. Since For the Bible Tells me So was such a hit amongst college students with an elementary understanding of modern Christianity, the LGBTQ community should probably make another movie called For the Quran Tells Me So, it might get banned on college campuses, but it would still be a great sequel. 

The second prong would be to pressure liberal politicians to take a stronger stance against Islamic homophobia, and actually admonish those communities for failing to support the rights of another minority group. Pandering isn’t going to get you anywhere with the Muslim Community. Take Anthropology or middle eastern studies or just have a few honest conversations with people from Libya or somewhere and you’ll understand that middle eastern cultures respect strong, authoritative leadership. Don’t just look through the lense of what is socially acceptable in the United States.