Wow, this weekend we were once again faced with a tragedy that has left me speechless. I have no words to begin to cover the amount of sadness and grief this event has caused me personally. Not just because of how sad it is that 50-plus lives were lost or forever changed, but because once again we are politicizing these people's deaths.

This is the worst mass shooting in our nation's history and the only thing I keep seeing on social media is people exclaiming that "Muslims" are to blame for this. They shouldn't be allowed in our country, they should be shipped out or worse ... their lives should be taken. Well, let me start by saying this. Shut up. Stop talking. You look ignorant, and worse...your words are fueled with the same hatred that caused this man to open fire on innocent members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies. Shame on you. Now that we've gotten that out of the way let's really talk about this issue.

While this was a Muslim extremist, and a terrorist attack on our nation in the name of Islam, it is more than important to remember that there are extremists in every religion. It is not okay to categorize the entire religion of Islam, or to profile someone of Middle Eastern descent as being a terrorist, and Islamic extremist, or someone to fear. This is not a time to advance one's self in the political spectrum. If someone is using these people's deaths and injuries for their own personal gain...wow, would you want someone to use your death as a means to just get another person's vote? Yeah, didn't think so.

We should also hint to the fact that this was in a gay club. Islamic individuals are very conservative in their beliefs about being gay, transgender, etc. They hate members of the LGBTQ+ community which we have seen over and over again in their violent acts committed against those that are outed in Islamic controlled countries.

Omar Mateen, the shooter, was killed by police when SWAT teams arrived on scene. But who is Omar Mateen? He was a legal citizen. That's right. He is here legally. Oh, and those guns he used to commit this heinous act of violence — they were both bought this past week. It was so incredibly easy for him to get an assault-style weapon that is only used to bring about a significant amount of damage and harm. Weapons of this caliber are not meant to be in the hands of civilians. Just because you "have the right" to own a gun doesn't mean you should be able to have a semi-automatic assault rifle.

DISCLAIMER: This article should not be confused as a left-wing attempt to bring about "no guns" that so many Conservatives claim liberally minded people are talking about when we reference gun control. This is about bringing about awareness to the Islamophobia and poorly disguised racism that is happening in our nation and in our world.

This man did pledge his allegiance to ISIS, but there are so many other Muslim-Americans that haven't and won't ever pledge their allegiance to that radical group. Speaking of radical religious people, if we are going to discuss Islamic individuals in this regard then we MUST discuss those other attacks made in the name of other religions. That's right! There have been other attacks that should be called religious terrorism that have nothing to do with Islam or ISIS or even Al Qaeda. But you probably would not see those things on Fox News or hear Tomi the blonde conservative go on a twenty minute rant about those. So, let me refresh your mind with a few statistics and a few stories.

1. According to the FBI, 94 percent of terrorist attacks carried out in the United States between 1980 and 2005 were committed by non-Muslim individuals or groups.

2. According to the Huffington Post, there have been 140,000 terrorist attacks have occurred worldwide since 1970. If we were to FALSELY assume that these were all committed by Muslims they would represent less than .00009 percent of the entire Muslim population.

3. The Knoxville Universalist Church Shooting

So, let me quickly break this down for you. Jim Adkisson, a devout Christian went into a church in Knoxville, TN and opened fire because he claimed that this was a liberally minded church that supported abortion. So he used his Christian belief that abortion was wrong to murder and wound innocent children who were performing a church play.

4. Oklahoma City Bombings

Yet another devout Christian and domestic terrorist, Timothy McVeigh, killed 168 people and wounded another 648 people when he detonated a fertilizer bomb at a government building. He carried out this act of senseless violence to only "prove a political point."

5. The Massacre at Zion Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC

On June 17th, 2015 a white male stood up during a church service and began opening fire at worshippers, killing nine people including the pastor and a state senator. Witnesses told authorities that he stood up and yelled, "I have to do it. You rape our women and you’re taking over our country. And you have to go." He also had a Confederate license plate, and was tied to a racist apartheid group from Africa. This was specifically a hate crime, and the shooter was a baptized Christian and active member of a church.

Basically what I'm trying to say is this: it is time to stop demonizing Islamic people. It is time to stop politicizing and using people's deaths and injuries for personal, political gains. The idea that being Muslim means you're a terrorist and violent and being a Christian means you're always peaceful is colossally hypocritical and just plain dumb. This is wrong, people. But do you think that any of the above statistics or examples will get the same amount of media coverage as the Orlando shooting? (If you answer anything but no, you're obviously an idiot.) When we stop profiling entire groups of people we are entering very dangerous territory. When we start discriminating and enforcing laws that prevent immigration of people because of their religious beliefs then we lose sight of what our country was even founded upon; freedom from religious persecution. Have we forgotten that our ancestors and our founding fathers were demonized, discriminated against, and targeted by their government because of their religious beliefs that were "radical."

I'll leave you with this quote by a very smart, and peaceful man ...

"Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that." — Martin Luther King Jr.