At about 2 A.M on Sunday, June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen walked into a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. He did not walk out. And neither did at least 50 other men and women. It was at 2 A.M. Sunday morning that America witnessed the worst mass shooting in its history and the worst act of terrorism since the 9/11 attacks.
Mateen, an American-born man with parents hailing from Afghanastan, had expressed anger while with his father, after he had seen two men kissing in public. With about 300 people inside of Pulse, a nightclub in Orlando, Mateen locked the club and held men and women hostage. When the attack first began, a survivor described the noise to seem as if it was part of the show, but once the shootings began, one after another, they seemed to go on for longer than a song. For hours, those locked in the club did anything in order to survive. Some hid in dressing rooms, some hid under bodies, or hid behind the bar. Hours later, police crashed into the club with an armored vehicle and killed Mateen after he had killed 50 and left 53 injured. Mateen has been proven to have ties with ISIS.
It is 2016. Yet we still fight to be who we wish to be. People are still targeted based on a single aspect of their identity. While it is no longer as much about the color of our skin, it is now based on who we love. The idea of a traditional marriage is very difficult to uphold in today's age, especially considering the divorce rate in America. What will it take for people to stop discriminating against something that makes someone else happy? Will it take another law saying that we, as Americans, as human beings, have the right to love who we want and to marry as we please? Or will it take more policy on gun control? How do we erase the stigma, the prejudice against those who are different from us? What will it take to reduce the deaths?
The most powerful human feeling or emotion is the one that accompanies love. It's the happiness that fills your core and the desire to make someone else happy no matter the sacrifice. It's the smile that catches the attention of your best friend in the entire world, because that smile is for them. It's "drive safe", "call me if need me", it's the "everything is okay, I'm here" and so much more. It's a sense of comfort and belonging when everything seems to be wrong. It's being able to call somewhere home.
What does it take, for someone to look at another human being and say "no, you don't deserve that feeling. You don't deserve to love someone else like I love someone. You don't get to be happy because you are different."
How twisted does a person need to be to feel that way? To feel as if someone is beneath you because of who they love? That's the problem here... not gun control. It's that one man decided that others didn't deserve to love someone due to their gender. Love is love. What will it take for the world to see that? How do we drive out hate?
Prayers for those who were lost in the shooting. You have left bright marks on the hearts of so many, and you will forever be missed.
