For those of you who still use phrases like, “they just want to be different,”or“why do you have to be that way,” the deaths of fifty men and women at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida should answer the question. No one chooses to place their lives in the hands of assassins and bigots, your life is not a style choice it’s a natural occurrence. I know few people who wake up in the morning, unless you are a masochist and say to themselves, I’ve decide I want to be ridiculed, laughed at, physically threatened or killed today.
Exactly what made the people in that club, in the early am hours of Sunday morning, guilty? NOTHING, only the closeminded religious fervor of a manic. I am conflicted about even allowing the meanderings of a man bent on destruction to be excused with the insanity of religious fanaticism. During the presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz, the Reverend Kevin Swanson went on an anti-gay tirade that ISIS would have lauded. He spoke at the National Religious Liberties Conference. He went on an incoherent rant about America repenting for exposing their 6 year olds to Harry Potter and somehow allowing them to stumble into the clutches of Dumbledore and his homosexual influence. That was just the warmup. He said that Christian families that have gay or lesbian children who want to marry, the parents should protest by sitting in the doors of the church in sackcloth and ashes and literally cover themselves in cow manure to stop the proceedings.
I wanted to laugh when I heard this but he astounded me when he openly advocated death to homosexuals, “not my words but his” in reference to God, he went on to say. Even sadder, soon after he introduced and welcomed Senator Ted Cruz, whose response was, “you are not going to question me about fantasy football are you?”
Many people, some good, some bad, many who were loved even some we may not have liked died, ironically on a Sunday morning. The descriptions of the victims describes a lot us, funny isn’t it… The important thing is, they had a right to live as they pleased, love who they wanted and most of all enjoy peace.
So when we point fingers at extremist who practice religions that don’t adhere to whatever standards we think makes us superior, remember a man who condoned the nonsense of Kevin Swanson was one of two finalists for the nomination, by the Republican Party, for President of the United States of America.
Days and weeks will pass; we will all show enough sufficient outrage to ease our minds, we will scream enough! We screamed in Columbine, we screamed in Sandy Hook, Ct., we screamed in Aurora, we screamed in San Bernardino, we screamed in Charleston and now we are loosening our vocal chords for Orlando, people are worth much more than a good scream. The usual suspects will place blame on the heads of those least deserving, in this case the victims. I will hear allusions to arcane Bible verses like, reaping what you sow, for the next two weeks. We have let the sick elements of society rule too often but the people pulling the trigger and those who think they have a right to choose at whom the gun takes aim, share the responsibility. Reverend Swanson I agree; you should sit by the door but you don’t have to cover yourself in manure, you’ve been full of it a long time.