As the country and the worldwide LGBTQ community begins to process the horrific events at Pulse nightclub late Saturday night, many will search for answers to make sense of the killer’s state of mind.
Was it religious extremism? Anti-gay hatred? Mental illness? Or just as likely, some dark and potent combination of all three that led Omar Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, FL, to charge into a crowded club and inflict death and suffering?
We’ll never know exactly what was going through his mind, but comments given to NBC News Sunday by Mateen’s father do speak to the levels of ignorance, fear and hatred Mateen had towards sexual minorities.
Mateen’s father, Mir Seddique, said he thinks his son’s atrocious actions can be tied to at least one experience of seeing two men kiss in public a couple of months ago, and that it “had nothing to do with religion.”
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We will, of course, take these comments with a massive grain of salt and wait to see what other stories bubble to the surface in the coming hours and days. But at the very least it’s one disturbing angle into the thought process of the killer.
Mir Seddique told NBC:
“We were in Downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry. They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, ‘Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that.’ And then we were in the men’s bathroom and men were kissing each other. We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country. This had nothing to do with religion.”
We’ll keep you updated as more details become clear.
Kieran
Donald J. Trump ?@realDonaldTrump 3 hours ago
Horrific incident in FL. Praying for all the victims & their families. When will this stop? When will we get tough, smart & vigilant?
Kieran
Donald J. Trump ?@realDonaldTrump 2 hours ago
Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!
13,186 retweets 30,043 likes
Paco
And I wonder what the father of the shooter said to his son when they encountered the two men kissing? Probably reinforced his son’s homophobic training he had been giving him his entire life.
The blame is on the shooter and possibly the way the father raised him. The blame is not on the men they saw kissing and not on the victims of his son’s sick homophobic rampage.
Please don’t allow the homophobia to be brushed aside in all of this.
Poncho Sanchez
Again, Arab men often kiss in public, there’s something more two the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXo8X7LK95M
Kangol
So the father and his terrorist son are hom0phobes, this was clear from the horrific attack. Hom0phobia and other forms of hatred coupled with assault weapons is a deadly combination.
The problem is never two adult consenting men kissing, it’s hom0phobia, transphobia (currently legislated into law by the North Carolina Republican Party and other states), heterosexism, and hatred of all kinds. 53 people lost their lives today, 50 were injured by a nutcase who additionalliy chose a bar filled with Latinx and Black POCs to commit mass murder.
The terrorist was also a brutal misogynist who beat his ex-wife, so the signs were there that he needed psychological help. Too bad he wasn’t getting it instead of having access to powerful weapons.
Any ideologies (Islamism, Christian Dominionism, Ultra Orthodox Judaism, etc.), that foster and abet hom0phobia and other forms of hate, like r@cism, misogyny, etc., are the problem!
Kangol
@Poncho Sanchez: The terrorist wasn’t Arab, which is an ethnicity, he was Muslim. His family was from Afghanistan. Afghans are not Arabs.
There are Christian Arabs, and Muslim Arabs. But the majority of Muslims are NOT Arab. They live in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Malaysia, Turkey, Iran, etc.
Two Arabs kissing has nothing to do with a fanatical hom0phobic Islamist US citizen who chose to target a gay bar filled with LGBTIQ Latinxs and other POCs.
James
Of course the stupid ugly father only reaffirmed the homophobia. The father is a liar.
Poncho Sanchez
@Kangol: Iranians aren’t arab either, but that Iranian leader is certainly kissing on the lips.
Mack
With the father’s comments, does that mean as a gay man when I see a straight couple kissing I can shoot them? Or is it only gays you’re allowed to shoot?
onthemark
@Mack: You need a holy book to do that. And it needs to be at least 1,400 years old. So it looks like you will have to wait!
GC1985
@Kieran: One of the most insensitive douchebag type of remarks one could make! And he’s already getting a major backlash for it! He should shut his fucking mouth for once.
https://www.yahoo.com/movies/orlando-shooting-trump-sees-backlash-over-congrats-tweet-191007850.html
GC1985
Trump is an awful, awful human being and the way he has treated the community is purely disgusting. Anybody can see him for what he is.
doug105
Just 2 months before this.
Published on Apr 6, 2016
The United West investigative team uncovered a story so disturbing Field Sutton of Channel 9 news in Orlando, FL broke the story on their newscast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBlwxqqAprQ
he Husseini Islamic Center, 5211 Hester Ave, Sanford, FL 32773, invited Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar to speak at their Mosque. Dr. Sekaleshfar says the killing of homosexuals is the compassionate thing to do.
In a 2013 speech Sheikh Sekaleshfar said this regarding gays, “Death is the sentence. We know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about this, death is the sentence…We have to have that compassion for people, with homosexuals, it’s the same, out of compassion, let’s get rid of them now.”
When Sheikh Sekaleshfar calls for the death of all homosexuals based on the tenets of Islam it can not be ignored, he is an expert on Shariah Islamiyya or Islamic Law.
Islamic Law also mandates a death sentence for blasphemers and apostates, does Sheikh Sekaleshfar and the Husseini Islamic Center Mosque advocate those legal rulings as well?
What’s equally disturbing is the response to this call for killing gays from Rev. Bryan Fulwider of the Interfaith Council of Central Florida. Rev. Fulwider said, “These issues around homosexuality and the decrying of it or denouncing of it by religion takes away, often, from our really important task of helping our community to be a better community…and wishes congregations would focus more on helping the homeless, poor , and abused instead of persecuting a group that can take care of itself.”
This tepid response from Rev. Fulwider is problematic because he refuses to denounce the Husseini Islamic Center Mosque for promoting a speaker who calls for the murder of homosexuals. Rev. Fulwider can’t even say that calling for the murder of gays is wrong. Fulwider concludes by adding insult to injury, saying don’t worry about the gays they can take care of themselves.
Equally as troubling is the leadership at the Husseini Islamic Center Mosque in Sanford, FL never condemn or disagree with the words spoken by their speaker about the killing of gays – silence is consent.
It would appear the hatred of gays by The Westboro Baptist Church has been eclipsed by Sheikh Sekaleshfar and the Husseini Islamic Center Mosque of Sanford, FL. Both of these supposed places of worship should be stripped of their 501c3 status and relegated to the dustbin of history.
Alan Kornman
The United West
Regional Coordinator
Brian
Two men kissing is very powerful. It scares women, men, liberals and conservatives.
Josh in OR
And who told him that being so angry about two men kissing that murdering 50 and injuring 50+ was a ‘reasonable response’? Religion. Religion is a CHOICE, not an inborn trait. A choice…like owning high-powered weapons, beating your wife, and hating people who you don’t understand. It’s a poisonous choice responsible for more ills and evil throughout history than can possibly be justified.
MediaGuy
A lot of the Jews got out. The others were in denial and they convinced themselves that the social fabric would hold up, that the Jew haters weren’t really killers, they were just the kids next door in brown shirts, and they believed the whole Nazi thing was attributable to economics and would eventually blow over. If you believe the Orlando massacre is about gun control or homosexual panic or mental illness you are wrong. Islam has come for us. It’s time to acknowledge that. Or you will be killed by Muslim murderers. Hillary wants more of these military age men brought in and not even vetted. Don’t let that happen. Hillary will put the radical enemy in the apartment upstairs from you. I promise she will. No more pride parades, no more gay bars, no more “offensive” kissing in public. They are here. Who let them in?
Bjk
Blaming the victims.
Josh in OR
@MediaGuy: News flash: Neither the Orlando massacre nor the aborted LA Pride attempted massacre were committed by refugees or immigrants. Both were planned by – and in the case of Orlando – committed by American citizens.
Why not say what you mean? “Brown people scare me, and I want them to go away! America is only for the whites!”
Right wingers never cease to amaze me in their swift use of tragedy to drum up fear and hate while pretending to be reasonable…
MediaGuy
@Josh in OR: boy, are you missing the point. but i dont have the time or interest to walk you through it. and yeah, play the race card and call everybody a name. you’re a freaking genius. omg i’m embarrassed for you.
MediaGuy
@Josh in OR: oh wait. oregon. now i get it.
Billy Budd
The father basically said that two men kissing is a sin and that if someone sees it, it is normal to kill fifty people because of it, even though he knows it is wrong to kill.
Billy Budd
I don’t think that muslim immigrants should be forbidden. But there should be GUN CONTROL in America. It is sheer madness to allow everyone to have weapons of mass destruction. Here in Brazil the population is almost totally unarmed.
joeyty
@Billy Budd: They don’t need guns. In Seattle the Muslim tried to kill a thousand gays through arson. In NYC (Uncle Charlies) it was a bomb.
throwslikeagirl
His father’s comments are heartbreaking. This is the work of a sick mind, not of one’s faith.
gaym50ish
I wonder…hmmm… what could be upsetting his wife and son now?
gayhope1990
The freak’s father is a liar.As if he didn’t know his son hated LGBT+ people.On the Internet,his father is known for his hatred about the USA and its policy in Afghanistan.Almost every country where gay relationships are punished by the death sentence is muslim.You jeopardize your life being gay or lesbian or bisexual or trans there.
Chris
He got upset because his wife (who has since left him) and child saw this happen. What he should have been more ashamed of was that they saw HIS homophobic reaction to a simple expression of affection.
Ogre Magi
I hate muslims