a serious question.....do you think the shooter was so distraught about HIS own sexuality that he

[a kennedy]

did this horrific act???

now what about this fellow, he's trying to legally kill himself because of his sexuality: http://www.care2.com/causes/gay-man-who-cant-accept-his-sexuality-tests-belgiums-euthanasia-law.html

Belgium’s right to die law faces a new test this month. A gay man, so distressed about his sexuality, wants the right to have a medically assisted death.

A 39-year-old Belgian, known to the press as Sébastien, has disclosed that after years of psychological distress, he hopes to undergo medically-assisted suicide.

The man, who reportedly grew up in a Catholic family and lived with a mother who suffered dementia, has known since the age of 15 that he is attracted to “young men and adolescent boys.” Due to his troubled background, the man cannot reconcile the distress he feels.

Sébastien contends that he has struggled with his feelings for over 24 years — 17 of those involving psychological therapy. He feels he has no other therapeutic options left and, as a result, requests the right to die.

“My whole life has led me to this, really,” Sébastien tells the BBC. “My mother had dementia, so I wasn’t right, mentally. All that was instilled in me, so I was extremely lonely, extremely withdrawn, very inhibited physically – scared to go out, scared of being seen, all the time scared, hugely shy. And growing up, I met a boy and I fell crazy in love. We were both 15. And it was just unbearable for me, you know? I didn’t want to be gay.”


I don't really think that the Isis connection is the pursuit that should be followed...... JMHO. I'm sure others have thought this as well.

[Coventina]

1. No, I don't. LGBT people are not "broken."

To me, that is saying that an African American would commit mass murder because of being African American, another oppressed minority.

If it walks like a terrorist, quacks like a terrorist....etc.

[ileus]

2. No...it's an excuse so we don't have to side with Trump or Christians.

[Silver_Witch]

3. No correlation at all!

You need to remove this post a man suffering mental illness seeking assisted suicide has NOTHING to do with a mass murderer. Stop this!

[Brickbat]

4. I think it's possible that the Orlando murderer had been bulled and ostracized throughout his

childhood and didn't get a lot of support as he got older, and so felt lost, disconnected and angry. This guy? I support the right to die, and it seems to me he's tried as hard as possible through therapy to get better.

[Arugula Latte]

5. Fuck religion, the scourge of the planet.

[LanternWaste]

8. More accurately, humanity.

More accurately, humanity.

[NaturalHigh]

6. I think it's possible it might have had something to do with it...

but I think there were a lot of other things going on too. Anyone who could shoot 100 people is either a psychopath or is in the middle of a psychotic break.

[Yo_Mama]

7. I think it was one of the factors. That and ideology.

The theology says that someone who dies for Islam as a shahid is forgiven all sins.

So if he believed he couldn't be gay without going to hell, this was a way out.

There's a long jump between "I want to sleep with men" and "Oh, I have to shoot a whole bunch of people and get killed in the attempt because I want to sleep with men." To many of us, an unbridgeable gulf.

Many, indeed most, persons with a same-sex orientation would simply live their lives that way. Nothing about being gay or bisexual or however you categorize it should drive a person to suicide or murder.

[KamaAina]

9. You think?

That might explain his dozen previous visits to Pulse, and his gay dating site profile.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027910328

[loyalsister]

10. Can't know without asking

A psychiatrist I knew said that people who are homicidal are also suicidal. His sexual orientation may have provoked a sense of self hate, but I don't think it was a single driving factor. I also don't think that his religion was a single driving factor. I think it is a behavior that most likely had complex, multiple origins.

After these shootings people seem to want to blame something that explains and distances them from the act and the motivation. People who have plenty of distance between themselves and real people who are Muslims and their families feel very comfortable stigmatizing and promoting hate in their direction. Others blame mental illness. Now people want to attribute a difficult to understand behavior to a way of being that strikes them as a personal quality which must be horrifying.

I am satisfied with acknowledging that there are likely many unknown variables that influence this act. I also think it is important to not forget that people kill over very ordinary events and situations. These killers could easily be our vengeance seeking, hateful neighbors. Most of us have come across people who exhibit such qualities.

A question no one is asking: Was he motivated by stigma directed toward him because he was Muslim?

[Lizzie Poppet]

11. Given the environment he seems to have been raised in, it certainly could be.

His father's several statements make it easy to believe he was raised in an environment of extreme, religiously-motivated homophobia. A gay or bisexual person raised under those conditions is obviously going to struggle enormously with the realization of their orientation. Combine that with what seems to have been a propensity towards anger and violent conduct, and well...we've all seen what can happen.

[Runningdawg]

12. I think he wanted

the shooting to be atonement for his own sins. He wanted to erase any dishonor brought to his family from his sexual choices or rumors of his choices.

[underahedgerow]

13. This guy had every single odd stacked against him. Let's look at how effed up the guy was,

shall we?

1. Born into an ultra conservative religion.
2. Bipolar.
3. Suppressing his homosexuality and living a double life, both married with children, and then hiding his secret sexual identity.

So, he turns to anything radical and manly to identify with, all the while suffering extreme rage, mostly at himself of course, but targeting and lashing out at everyone around him.

He is a 'security guard' most likely because there's no way a policing agency or military organization would have him. Surely he was rejected before he even tried.

This is a guy that comes from a culture that sees nothing wrong with using young boys for sexual pleasure, yet vilifying homosexuality. That's confusing and effed up even for a straight guy without a mental disorder.

In his mental state, he sought to identify with radical islam. It had to be appealing because of its nonsensical unchecked violence making headlines every. single. day. But he was too weak and most likely too effing stupid to figure out how to get genuinely involved with such nuts. On top of that, he would have been a liability to any base organization because he was a 'loose cannon'. Heck, they probably didn't want him either.

So dude finally tips over the edge. Something triggered him and his lifelong self loathing and disgust and because the NRA is so great, he could buy any kind of weapon his little heart desires. And he did, and he did something beyond horrifying.

So it's a complex issue, but it comes down that trifecta of factors, the least of which, and the crux of which is the intolerance of islam. His mental disorders just sent the whole thing into an horrific tailspin with the worst possible outcome.

But it wasn't a terrorist act. It was the act of a lone spree killer, who latched onto -- at least in his warped mind -- the most vile group he could associate himself with to justify his actions.

(BTW, it's entirely possible that when he mentioned 4 others, he could have been referring to his own other personalities. It's not out of the question that he had a multiple personality disorder along with his bi-polar disorder)

If isis didn't exist, he would have found something else to justify his actions, but if the USA had decent gun control laws, he would not have gotten his weapons so easily.

We can thank the GOP and the NRA that owns them.