The LGBT community has been the victim of homophobia and violence from every society, even more so in the developing and the third world countries. The mass murder at Pulse nightclub in Orlando last month exemplifies the boiling sentiment of hatred toward homosexuals.
As the LGBT is gaining ground, homophobia along with violence is on the rise. The mass murder of 49 people at a gay bar in Orlando is the deadliest on U.S. soil. Also, Washington Blade reports that 594 LGBT people were murdered in the Americas during a 15-month period in 2014. But many times before, the gay community has been the victims of aggression for their sexual orientation.
A fire determined to be arson tore through the UpStairs Lounge, a gay bar in the French Quarter, killing 32 people. The list of individual or mass hate crimes against gay people is endless.
The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association lists 73 countries with criminal laws against sexual activity by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender people. In most African and Muslim countries, a known gay is automatically ostracized or doomed to persecution or death. In those countries, the killing of gay people by any presumed individual is not investigated or prosecuted. It is justice to them.
"Until we address the root causes of bias toward LGBT people, we'll continue to have hate perpetrated against us," says Shawna Virago, a program director for the San Francisco advocacy group Community United Against Violence. One of the root causes could well be the fact that homosexuality defies nature's law of the union between a man and a woman. Another root cause could also be the fear of reliving Sodom and Gomorrah's destruction right in the United States because of the widespread homosexual practices.
On the other hand, in the Western world, especially in the industrialized countries, homosexuality has become a luxury so to speak, an acceptable social dynamic that people have learned to cope with. It is a social revolution that is gaining momentum, truly an era of homosexual emancipation that is no different from the Women's Liberation Movement of the early 20th century and the 1964 Black Civil Rights Movement.
By the way, a gay person could be anyone belonging to any social hierarchy: a priest or a congregant, a congressman or a constituent, those who are open about their sexual orientation or many more who choose to remain in the closet for fear of harassment or embarrassment.
As homophobic as one may be, a gay person is someone who has the same goals and aspirations as a heterosexual. It's time to start a healing process by extending an olive branch of love and friendship to the LGBT community. But making them an extinct component of society serves no purpose. For God abhors as much the wrong done to the homosexuals as the homosexuality itself.
