According to the Palm Beach Post:
A former classmate of Omar Mateen’s 2006 police academy class said he believed Mateen was gay, saying Mateen once asked him out.The article goes on to point out that Mateen hung out with gays, and frequently went to gay clubs, including the Pulse.
But Mateen had trouble fitting in with gays, and was "socially awkward".
On the other hand, he could never come out of the closet with his Islamic family. Islam has strict prohibitions against homosexual intercouse, so his feelings had to be suppressed there. "Gay Muslim" is one of those phrases like "military intelligence": It just doesn't work.
Mateen was a man trapped between two worlds, neither of which would accept him fully.
But don't walk away so quickly, Islam. Your share of the blame in this tragedy is still present, even if it has nothing to do with "terrorism". Rather, it has everything to do with your views on homosexuality. Because of your religion's hatred of homosexuals, Mateen had no place to turn for guidance in his quest for a place in this world. The one place he should have been able to turn, his religion, rejected his identity. Since his family were all Muslims, that precluded them from helping him.
Mateen was all alone in this world, and so he lashed out. Forced to choose between a gay community that rejected him as socially awkward, or an Islamic community that rejected his sexuality, he sided with the only one that would provide him an afterlife, because he had no more need for this life.
No comments:
Post a Comment