Box Turtle Bulletin

Fresno

Toronto

Let’s Not Fight One Phobia By Embracing Another

Numerous chapters of the Council on Islamic-American Relations across the country have released statements condemning yesterday’s attack on the gay night club Pulse in Orlando. The statements run the gamut from brief to, well…  some of the spokespersons “get it.” I’ve highlighted the ones who “got it” — the ones who specifically and accurately described the victims of the attack, which, as we’ve seen, a lot of people just aren’t willing to do.

For example, there was this statement that was read live on the major news networks. CNN and NBC carried it, that I know of. (Did Fox?) Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national Executive Director said this:

We offer condolences to the families and we pray for recovery of the survivors. This is a hate crime, plain and simple. We condemn it in the strongest possible terms. It violates our principles as Americans and as Muslims. Let me be perfectly clear. We have no tolerance for extremism of any kind. We must not tolerate hateful rhetoric that incites violence against minorities. Religious freedom is a cornerstone of our beliefs as Muslims and as Americans. Today, we must stand united.

For many years, members of the LGBT community have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Muslim community against any act of hate crimes, Islamophobia, marginalization and discrimination. Today, we stand with them shoulder to shoulder. The liberation of the American Muslim community is profoundly linked to the liberation of other minority groups: blacks, Latinos, gay, Jewish, trans and every other community that has faced discrimination and operation in this country.

Other chapters — I’d say about half of them that issued their own statements (some issued joint statements with local LGBT leaders) — followed suit:

Like all Americans, Ohio Muslims express their condemnation of this horrific act of violence. Our thoughts, prayers and condolences are with the families, friends and loved ones of the deceased and the injured.

As a civil rights organization that works to end bigotry and hatred, CAIR-Cleveland stands in solidarity with the Florida LGBTQ community at this time of great sorrow for our entire country.

As Americans we must come together as a people and work to build a society based on peace, mutual respect and understanding among all people. There should be no place for hate in our country.

— Julia Shearson, Executive Director of CAIR-Cleveland.

“Muslims across Ohio and the Tri-State join their fellow Americans in grief and shock to condemn Sunday’s mass shooting at a nightclub in Orlando,” said Karen Dabdoub, Executive Director of the Cincinnati chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Our hearts go out to the victims, their families and the GLBT community over this tragedy and we offer our deepest condolences and prayers.”

The Clifton Mosque also shares its condolences with the victims and their families. “The Islamic Association of Cincinnati stands with all Americans and in particular the LGBTQ community as we denounce the senseless loss of life in Orlando yesterday. Violence has no place is our religion or in our society. Our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families”.

Imam Ismaeel Chartier, imam at the Islamic Association of Cincinnati is co-organizing a vigil for Orlando today (Monday) at 6:30 PM at Fountain Square with “Cincinnati in Solidarity with Orlando”.

— Various statements from CAIR-Cincinnati

“The Columbus Muslim community is shocked and appalled by this horrific hate crime against the LGBT community. There are simply no words strong enough to convey our sorrow, disgust, and deep regret that yet another misguided individual has carried out a truly heinous and unjustifiable act in the name of ISIS. The fact that this atrocity was committed during Ramadan, our most holy month, a time when Muslims are supposed to focus on prayer, charity, and acts of kindness, shows that the perpetrator cared about nothing beyond ISIS’ perverted agenda.”

— Romin Iqbal, Staff attorney of CAIR-Columbus

Minnesota Muslims condemn in the strongest possible terms the mass shooting in Orlando. We offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured”

The LGBTQ community has stood side by side with the American Muslim community during challenging and difficult times. We stand together against hatred, violence and demonization of entire communities.

— Jaylani Hussein, Executive Director of the CAIR-Minnesota

Just stating that our hearts go out to all who are affected and who now must try to recover from the carnage created by Omar Mateen is not enough. Truly our thoughts are with them; however, we as a nation MUST address the core issues: hatred and terror, and the warped thinking that leads one to commit such atrocities, whether it may be the murder of 20 babies and their teachers in Connecticut, or the slaughter of nine worshippers in a holy sanctuary in South Carolina, or the hundreds of other such unthinkable murderous events wrought upon this nation. We stand firm in our commitment to building a country and a world where diversity, and religious, social and ethnic differences are celebrated to unite us all.”

…Since 9/11, the LGBTQ community has time and again supported the Muslim American community against the trials of bigotry and Islamophobia. Now, the Muslim American community stands with the LGBTQ community, as we believe any Muslim who embodies true Islamic principles should do.

— Miriam Amer, Executive Director of CAIR-Iowa

“We are horrified by this atrocious hate crime and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured. We also offer our support and allyship to the LGBTQ community, which has been a faithful ally against Islamophobia. The Muslim community joins our fellow Americans in repudiating anyone or any group that would claim to justify or excuse such an appalling act of violence.”

— Basim Elkarra, Executive Director of CAIR-Sacramento Valley

Following 9/11 attacks, the LGBTQ community has provided consistent and continuous support of the Muslim American community against the challenges of discrimination and Islamophobia. Now, we stand with the LGBTQ community in this great horror and injustice. We believe Muslims such as recently passed Muhammad Ali exemplify true Islamic principles of equality, while people like Omar Mateen represent the enemy of the faith and humanity.

— Sstatement from CAIR-California

American Muslims have set up a LaunchGood page to raise money for the Orlando shooting victims. LaunchGood describes itself as a platform for “crowdfunding incredible Muslims worldwide.” with a “30 days of giving” campaign for Ramada. The Pulse shooting campaign is the Ramadan Challenge for Day 8. As of noon PST today, the site has raised $44,588 out of a $50,000 goal. The page explains:

#Muslims4Pulse

At least 50 people were killed and 50 more wounded in Orlando, Florida where a gunman went on a horrific shooting spree at Orlando’s Pulse Nightclub. Gay clubs hold a significant place in LGBTQ history. They were often the only safe gathering place and this horrific act strikes directly at our sense of safety. Far too many Orlando families lost their loved ones in a deplorable act of violence. This is why a collective of American Muslim leaders and groups have united to raise funds for the victims’ families.

We wish to respond to evil with good, as our faith instructs us, and send a powerful message of compassion through action. Our Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said: “Have mercy to those on earth, and the One in the Heavens (God) will have mercy upon you.” And the Quran teaches to “Repel evil by that which is better” (41:34).

Whatever anyone feels about Islam, it cannot be denied that contemporary Islam, and I would presume the vast majority of its adherents hold abhorant views about the LGBT community. (I’m guessing here; I have no polling data on hand. I pretty sure I’m not going out on a limb here.) I’m not so certain that the Qu’ran’s take on homosexuality is any worse than the Torah or the Bible. The key difference is that mainstream Christianity and Judaism no longer holds to the kill-the-gays imperative of Leviticus, but vast swaths of contemporary Islam have not arrived to a parallel conclusion. So to those who argue that fundamental Islam is, on average, worse than fundamental Christianity or Judaism, I don’t really think I can argue against that based on what little I know today.

But let’s be very clear about the limitations of what “on average” means. As we’ve done a lot of work to change attitudes among American Christians and American Jews, we now have even more work to do to change attitudes among American Muslims. Based on my interactions with devout Muslims that I got to know here in Tucson, I know that goodwill exists among some — certainly not all, and probably not a majority, but some — and that this can an opening, either for further engagement or for closing the door entirely. 

And so it seems to me we have a choice. Do we answer the drum beat of those who see this as yet another opportunity to further the passions of Islamophobia, or do we resolve not to exchange one phobia for another?

Los Angeles, LA Pride

Chicago, Halsted at Roscoe

Trump Blames Immigrants For Pulse Night Club Massacre

Presumptive GOP presidential nominee and Trump University fraudster Donald Trump has issued a statement condemning the attack “by a radical Islamic terrorist.” His statement made absolutely no mention whatsoever precisely who or where that attack occurred. (He identified them only as “victims” and “our nation,” respectively.) In the statement, Trump said:

The terrorist, Omar Mir Saddique Mateen, is the son of an immigrant from Afghanistan who openly published his support for the Afghanistani Taliban and even tried to run for President of Afghanistan. According to Pew, 99% of people in Afghanistan support oppressive Sharia Law.

We admit more than 100,000 lifetime migrants from the Middle East each year. Since 9/11, hundreds of migrants and their children have been implicated in terrorism in the United States.

Mateen was born in New York twenty-nine years ago. This suggests that his family was among millions of Afghanis who fled the country during the Soviet invasion. The link Trump provides documents the elder Mateen’s support for the Taliban as part of a larger effort toward unificaiton of Pashtun areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. As for Trump’s claim that Mateen tried to run for President, I don’t see it, aside from “dozens of sparsely viewed, rambling YouTube videos portraying himself as an important Afghan analyst and leader.” In one video, “he seems to be pretending to be Afghanistan’s president.”

Well that figures, since Trump is pretending to be a serious presidential candidate.

Trump also reiterated his call for a Muslim ban:

What has happened in Orlando is just the beginning. Our leadership is weak and ineffective. I called it and asked for the ban. Must be tough

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2016

Click here to read Donald Trump’s full statement

Jamaica Plain, Boston

Mateen’s Ex-Wife: “When He Was Angry, He Would Sometimes Rant About Homosexuals”

Sitora Yusufiy, 27 and the ex-wife of Pulse night club shooter Omar Mateen, has come forward to described her two-year abusive marriage to Mateen. She said that when they first met on Myspace in 2008,  and married after a short engagement, ““He was a normal guy, joking, laughing, you know, like having fun.”

Mateen was religious but not radical. Born in New York, Mateen came from an Afghan family but was “Americanized,” Yusufiy said. Yusufiy, who now lives in Colorado, is Uzbekistani but had lived in the United States for nearly a decade before the marriage.

Yusufiy said Mateen desperately wanted to be a policeman and hung out with a lot of cops, often going to the shooting range with them.

But just a few weeks into the marriage, Yusufiy said, Mateen started showing another side, one of anger and control. She said Mateen made her get a job and then took the money she made.

“It was just his personal form on control. He wanted to control me and do whatever he [could] to keep me hostage,” she said.

When he was angry, he would sometimes rant about homosexuals, Yusufiy said.

“In those moments of emotional instability, he would express his anger towards [a] certain culture, homosexuality, because in Islamic culture, it is not really tolerated, homosexuality. And I know at the time he was trying to get his life straight and follow his faith,” she said.

One former co-worker at the Port St. Lucie security firm that employed Matteen confirmed to the New York Times Mateen’s bigotry and erratic behavior:

According to Mr. Gilroy, who said that he had repeatedly complained to G4S, the security company that employed them, Mr. Mateen was a loud, profane presence who was prone to using racial, ethnic and sexual slurs.

Mr. Gilroy, a former police officer in Fort Pierce, described Mr. Mateen as a man who had “issues and just constant anger.”

“He was just agitated about everything, always shaken, always agitated, always mad,” said Mr. Gilroy, who said his relationship with Mr. Mateen became increasingly tense, with Mr. Mateen badgering him with text messages 20 or 30 times a day.

According to the FBI, Mateen had, at various times, expressed admiration for Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, and, just before the attack, ISIS. Observers note the confusing contradictions in those endorsements: all three groups are bitter enemies of each other. According to the Guardian:

The full extent of Mateen’s motivations may have been complex and less clear than immediately apparent, though. A knowledgeable US official told the Guardian that while the federal investigation was in the earliest stages, an initial hypothesis regarding the shooter’s motive leaned closer to a hate crime than an act of terrorism.

“The idea of it being terrorism is not off the table, but it’s probably not the principal approach,” said the official, who would not be identified by name or agency in discussing a fast-moving investigation. “There are other reasons to believe it was motivated toward a very specific kind of community, obviously.”

That investigation was still determining if the shooting was “terrorism or a massive, massive hate crime”, the official said. The official emphasized that all hypotheses were preliminary.

New Orleans, Bourbon Street

Steven Anderson: “50 Less Pedophiles In The World”

Noted anti-gay extremist Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, posed a YouTube video celebrating yesterday’s attack on the Pulse night club in Orlando resulting in “fifty sodomites killed.” To Anderson, this comes as both good news and band news:

“The good news is there’s fifty less pedophiles in the world. You know, these homosexuals are a bunch of disgusting perverts and pedophiles. That’s who was a victim here, are a bunch of just disgusting homosexual at a gay bar, okay?”

“But the bad news is this is now going to be used, I’m sure, to push for gun control, where law-abiding normal Americans are not going to be allowed to have guns for self defense. And then I’m sure it’s also going to be used to push an agenda against so-called “hate speech.” So Bible-believing Christian preachers who preach what the Bible actually says about homosexuality – that it’s vile, that it’s disgusting, that they’re reprobates – we’re gonna be blamed. … I’m sure that people are going to start attacking bible-believing Christians because of what this guy did.”

Anderson insisted that everyone who was murdered deserved to die, although that’s not what he would have done. He would have “obeyed the law of the land,” but…

But I will say this: the Bible says that homosexuals should be put to death in Leviticus 20:13. Obviously, it’s not right for someone to just, you know, shoot up the place because that’s not going through the proper channels. But these people all should have been killed anyway but they should have been killed through the proper channels as in, they should have been executed by a righteous government that would have tried them, convicted them, and saw them executed. Because in Leviticus 20:13, God’s perfect law, he put the death penalty on murder and he put the death penalty on homosexuality. That’s what the Bible says. Plain and simple.

…I’m not sad about it. I’m not going to cry about it. As these people were going to die, these fifty people in the gay bar that got shot up, they were going to die of AIDS and syphilis and whatever else. They were all gonna die early anyway. Because homosexuals have a 20 year shorter lifespan than normal people anyway. … At least they’re off the streets. So I’m just trying to look on the bright side.

Minneapolis, Loring Park

Report: Mateen Cased Other Orlando Gay Bars Before the Attack

The East Orlando Post reports:

Micah Bass, owner of the recently opened Revere Nightclub and The M Hotel, informed the East Orlando Post that Mateen had sent him a friend request on Facebook late last week.

“With running The M and Revere, I constantly get requests from LGBT allies, performers, and potential guests who just want to have fun and spend time with family and friends.”

Earlier today, Bass notified the FBI of Mateen’s activity on social media and is reviewing security footage to see if the suspected shooter or any potential accomplices did, in fact, visit the property in the weeks leading up Sunday’s tragedy at Pulse.

…Veteran investigator and former Orlando law enforcement officer James Copenhaver observed that Mateen could have very well investigated several venues before selecting Pulse Nightclub to carry out what Florida Governor Rick Scott has called a “terrorist attack.”

“My training and experience suggest the shooter was scoping out LGBT clubs by friending club owners, club staff, and even customers of the LGBT clubs in the Orlando area on social media.”

San Francisco

British Journalist Walks Off Live TV Over Downplaying of Homophobia

I’m seeing the same trend here in the states, and I’ll have much, much  more to say about this. But here’s Owen Jones walking out of a Sky News panel discussion over the host’s insistence on downplaying the homophobia aspect to yesterday’s mass shooting.

“The issue is I will not have people, as a gay man, appropriating — the people who never speak about gay rights except when this happens if there are Muslims involved. Then they’s jump on the bandwagon and they’ll spam as much bile as they want. And I’m proud to live in a city, one the the greatest cities on the face of the earth whose mayor is a Muslim. He votes for equal rights including equal marriage in defiance of lots of other people and death threats.”

Host Mark Longhurst then brought up the arrest in L.A. of James Wesley Howell who was reportedly preparing to attack the Gay Pride celebration there. He only acknowledged that Howell was not Muslim “as far as we know,” and asked “whether there is, as you say, a hate crime or whether something is being done in the name of religion.” As if there was a difference.

Jones responded: “Can we just be clear, because you say its lunatics and all the rest of it. We’ve got to be clear. If he went into a synagogue and killed innocent Jewish people… People have done that, disgusting anti-Semitic terrorists, we will call it out for what it is. This person is a homophobic terrorist, whatever else he is. Presumably he’s got some twisted view of Islamic fundamentalism to justify his… even though he’s a knuckle-dragging thug and a get. At the end of the day this is a homophobic hate crime as well as terrorism. It as be called out because I have to say on Sky News and lots of other news, there’s not been many LGBT voices I’ve personally heard myself. And people have to understand as LGBT people watching this and elsewhere, they look at something like this and it is one of the worst atrocities committed against LGBT people in the Western world for generations.”

Longhurst continued to insist that the attack was carried out against human beings. “You cannot say this is a worse attack than what happened in Paris.” It was, he said, a crime Host Mark Longhurst interjected and said the crime had been carried out against “human beings” who were “ trying to enjoy themselves, whatever their sexuality.”

“What are you talking about?” Jones exclaimed. “I’m trying to understand the point you’re making. It was a deliberate attack on LGBT people in an LGBT venue. It was a homophobic terrorist attack. Do you understand that? It’s not some abstract… just kind of he picked a random club out of nowhere. He picked a club because it was full of people he regarded as evil. That’s why he picked the club.”

Co-panelist Julia Hartley-Brewer joined the minimization by suggested that the killer “might have equally horrified by me as a gobby woman”.

“Well fuck!,” Jones replied. “Why would you try to deflect?”

“I’m sorry, I just find this the most astonishing thing I’ve ever been involved in on television,” he continued. “If he’d walked into a synagogue and massacred dozens of Jewish people, you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying now. You’d be saying it was an anti-Semitic attack. This was a deliberate attack on LGBT people. It was a deliberate attack on the LGBT community. It’s bizarre…”

As the panel continued to divert and dissemble, Jones clearly withdrew himself form the discussion. Longhurst then brought up Peter Tachell’s gay rights group Stonewall to introduce the LGBT element on Longhursts’ chosen terms (“Is the danger… that you focus on one particular area and not the whole threat to our modern way of life?”). “I’ve had enough of this,” Jones said as he took off his microphone and walked off the set.

New York, Stonewall

Photo: Joe Jervis

Photo: Joe Jervis

From yesterday’s vigil in front if the Stonewall Inn.