I’m taking a break from my series about growing up gay and Christian to write a piece concerning Orlando. I’ve had a lot on my heart and mind since the attack at Pulse, a gay nightclub, in Orlando, Florida. I know it’s been a few weeks, but that first week or two I was feeling so many strong feelings I wasn’t sure I knew what to say or how to say it. I could hardly write about anything because I felt so weighed down by grief and anger. What I wanted to say, so many other people had already been saying on Facebook, and so, I even wonder how my words right now will be much different. But, I feel the weight lifting as I write, and I believe that means this is what I should be writing about.

People had many opinions about the shooting that took 49 lives and wounded over 50 more. Many were quick to call it terrorism because the shooter affiliated himself with Daesh (more commonly known as ISIS) immediately prior to entering the club. Others were quick to call it a hate crime because it was committed against minority groups (LGBTQ+, as well as Latinx and African Americans). There were those just as quick to condemn assault rifles as those claiming “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” While much has been said, I have a few things of my own to share.

Yes, dear 2nd amendment clingers, guns don’t kill people. People kill people. But guns sure help when a person can kill 49 people in a matter of seconds or minutes. By immediately jumping to this response, I believe that you are saying that the lives of those who were murdered are less important than your right to own a particular type of gun. You are saying that my life and my safety as an LGBTQ+ person is less valuable than your right to own any type of gun you’d like. That’s frankly unbelievable to me. And it’s utterly unChristian. If you don’t claim the Christian label, then I have nothing to say except that my life and my safety are more important than your right to own any type of gun.

If you are a Christian, then it is time to put your fear away and let go of your right to own any particular gun you wish. For life is more important than clinging to our fear, than clinging to our rights. Choosing safety for others is more important than rights to a specific type of gun, or at least your right to get one so easily. The way of Christ has never been one of violence. It has always been the way of the Cross, the way that exposes violence for its atrocities. Let us always remember that violence is not the answer, and guns are not an answer and guns are not more important than my life and my safety and my soundness of mind.

Now, to the note of terror and hate. The act is not terrorism because the shooter is Muslim and claimed affiliation with Daesh, but it is terrorism because it struck fear and terror into the hearts of LGBTQ+ people around this country. It is terror because it made us afraid, made us question going to Pride this year, made us realize that it could have been any of us. The media in our country likes to portray Muslims as terrorists, and this is slander against the mass majority of those who practice Islam. For terrorism comes from the acts of all different kinds of people committing all kinds of heinous crimes; a white man killing 9 black people in a church in Charleston, a Muslim shooting 49 LGTBQ+ people in a gay nightclub, a police officer shooting Tamir Rice, a 12 year old black boy, over a fake gun he was holding. Terror comes in many forms and we would be dishonest if we labeled Muslims as a whole terrorists and not straight, cisgender, white men and not police. We commit a dreadful sin against a people when we deem most or all of them as terrorists. Let us repent of that stereotyping, of that sin.

It is also a hate crime, because it was committed against a specific community of people, LGBTQ+ people. The shooter had also expressed vehemence towards LGBTQ+ people previously when seeing two men kissing. His homophobia was not a secret. His homophobia was not an isolated feeling and therefore, his actions were not an isolated event. Homophobia, transphobia, queerphobia is a real thing in this country. It is alive and well and breathing down our necks from every new law that bans transgender people from using the bathroom of their choice to each law that allows people to deny service to LGBTQ+ people. It is alive in every church that refuses to allow LGBTQ+ people full inclusion in the life of the church, from allowing them to marry to ordaining them. Yes, every church that participates in some form of exclusion of LGBTQ+ people is participating in homophobia and is contributing to the chain of events that led to the Orlando shooting.

Yes, dearly beloved Church, you are responsible. You are as culpable as the shooter himself in creating this atmosphere of homophobia, of perpetuating the lie that LGBTQ+ lives are less valuable that straight, cisgender lives. Yes, it is time for you (and me because even though I am a gay man, I still consider myself a Christian and part of the church) to own up to our complicity in the taking of these lives. I do not want your apologies and your condolences if you are not affirming of LGBTQ+ people and if you do not celebrate our lives. I do not want your mourning if I cannot have your celebrating. As Beth Watkins (a fellow undergraduate alum) put it, “If you didn’t show up to the wedding, don’t invite yourself to the funeral.” I could not say it any better. Christians are supposed to mourn and celebrate with people. I am sick with grief and anger over your petty beliefs about the rightness and wrongness of my life and the lives of LGBTQ+ people.

Dear Church, it is time you began to practice the love you preach. It is time for you to confront your homophobia and your xenophobia and your fear of other religions. It is time for you to confront yourselves and the harm you have caused and continue to cause to people of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as those of the Latinx and African American communities and the Muslim community. It is time for us, as a whole Church to learn that the action of love is far more important than any belief we hold, for Jesus models that in Scripture time after time. It is far past time for us to learn that love is far more the Gospel message than fear, than hate, than judging others before we understand and know them. Dear friends and dear Church, perfect love casts out all fear. I pray that we may all choose love each day over fear and hate, that love will win out. I pray that as a Church, we will take responsibility for our wrongs and for the harm we have caused LGBTQ+ people and the harm that we cause the Muslim community. And may the terror struck in our hearts by mass shooters and by hate crimes be driven out by love and joy and hope. And I pray for the victims of Orlando and all their families that they may find some semblance of peace and joy after their grief and anger and guilt have subsided, for those are heavy burdens to bear.