When I woke up this past Sunday, I was immediately heartbroken when I saw the news that over a hundred people were seriously injured or killed at a nightclub in Orlando overnight. This happened because a man became disgusted and outraged at the sight of two men kissing. What broke and enraged my heart even more, however, was the social media posts I saw that blamed the victims. I also saw posts of people pushing their political agendas, saying that if their political belief was being enacted through the country, this wouldn't have happened. Upon reading post after post by family members and friends, especially Christians, enraged me.
All of us have a right to be angry or hurt by what happened this weekend, but many of us are directing it at the wrong people or things. I have seen Christians saying that it was the victims' faults by being gay or blaming an entire religion for something that one person did. It shouldn't matter what your personal beliefs are about homosexuality, especially if you call yourself a Christian. The most important thing, as a Christian, is to love others with a love that even God would be jealous of. No if's, and's, or but's. And we seemed to have forgotten that with the "sin" that so many of these people committed, and for the record, it's not truly a sin anymore unless you want to count every other thing listed as a sin in the Old Testament. You can't pick one sin and say "Yup, that's a sin. The others? Nah, they're not as important,". They were just being themselves and enjoying a night where they could be whoever they wanted to be, which didn't get to happen often because of the ridicule that they have to face everyday. That is not what God has instructed us to do.
The political gun issue, in my opinion, is stupid. All of the possible outcomes that could have happened if assault weapons were banned or not, are just outcomes. And the Conservative's use of this shooting has been to push less bans on guns. Now either way, many of these club-goers were not going to have a gun on them, because they were at a club, at least that would be the last thing on my mind if I decided to go to a club.
The thing that hurts my heart the most is the fact that we are ignoring the hurt and mourning from the families and victims of this shooting, and instead focusing on the retaliation course that we should take or the restrictions that we should put on things. "You strain out gnats, but swallow camels" Matthew 23:24. That quote describes almost too well what we are doing now. We seem to be obsessing over the smaller matters, yet ignore the big picture. So what if they were gay? They were people too and are every bit as deserving of love as I am or you are. So what if the shooter was Muslim? That doesn't mean that every Muslim wants to kill someone who isn't like them. That isn't what we should be focusing on. We should be outraged over how un-united we are as a nation, how our children aren't being raised with the love they deserve, and how one extremist terrorist group has gotten their way. They are preying on our hatred. No other country that stands together and loves each other has as many hate crimes as we do.
Even so, if you do wish to feel differently and say that I am wrong, then that's okay. I beg of you, let us mourn first before you turn something minuscule, such as gun laws or sin, into the main focus of something so tragic. Remember that everyone is human and every one is hurting by this tragedy.
