I'm a queer man, married for ten years, writing to redress the callous remarks that Wally Neufeld launched at LGBT persons who attended a vigil, like others held around the globe, to honour and remember the 49 killed and approximately 50 wounded last week at a queer nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.
Like many of you, learning about this tragedy struck to our cores. Our week has variously been filled with tears and a mixture of anger, sadness, confusion, fear and despair.
I don't pretend to claim to speak for the entire GLBT community, but I want you to know when you weep, others are weeping with you. We are together, even when you think you're alone.
I'd like to offer you one queer perspective on these issues that is more complex than Mr. Neufeld's dogged insistence that the LGBT vigil can be reduced to a "disgusting" opportunity to shed "crocodile tears" while on public display.
Incensed by the so-called politically correct establishment that allegedly prevents people like him from "calling it like it is," he argues this tragedy marks the loss of human lives not queer ones and they deserve a more appropriate expression of grief. Simply bow your head as he does and say a short prayer for these "unfortunate victims."
Mr. Neufeld's moment of pause, including what must have been a short, incredulous prayer, is overshadowed by investing more time writing a letter to the local paper outlining these concerns before "coming out" as a straight man and proposing the city host an annual straight pride parade complete with the installation of straight sidewalks.
Mr. Neufeld's views are as simplistic as they are absurd, and as naive as they are parochial. The subtext here is that contrary to his understanding of equality the GLBT community receives special treatment. Mr. Neufeld's trivialization of PRIDE and "coming out" makes clear that he lives in a present that is devoid of a history.
Times have changed, but "coming out" as GLBT can be difficult and have serious consequences.
A rebuttal to his diminishments could be as easy as saying: "I wish PRIDE wasn't necessary". Be thankful that your sexuality or gender-identity has never been subject to legal sanction, mental disorder classification or any other number of moral judgments or discriminatory practices.
But I also feel sympathy for the belittlements Mr. Neufeld makes with ease, and am thankful that his "coming out" will never be met the same way we are when we utter those words. Sometimes we're met with a complete silence that pretends those words were never spoken or more commonly by a disbelief and invalidation that signals any sexuality or non-conforming , gender-identity, heterosexuality excluded, is up for debate.
The massacre of queers at Pulse nightclub is a complex issue involving race, sexuality, and gender-identity expression. Indeed, most of us probably didn't know any of the victims nor would we claim the same kind of sorrow as those that did. Our grief is different, not disingenuous, but that doesn't make it any less personal.
Our grief is complicated by a mixture of silence and noise, erasure, denial and political appropriation. Part of that noise includes letters like Mr. Neufeld's where the lives lost are drowned out by his insistence that he is the real victim.
The less frequent, but intensely amplified noise is generated by an assortment of religious leaders and everyday people that congratulate the shooter for killing "pedophiles" and "deviants" or worse condemn his actions for not finishing the job.
This loud noise is perpetually disrupted by an equally loud and uncomfortable silence. As John Peart, internet blogger, puts it: "This hurts because, amongst all of this noise, so many people remain silent when usually they are the most vocal. They'll mourn the death of a gorilla but they won't mourn 49 dead LGBT people".
The reverberation of this noise, like the shooting itself, is appropriated for political purposes necessitating the erasure of the victims in attendance at a queer club on Latin night.
This might be difficult to understand, but "gay" clubs are magical spaces. The weight of the outside world is left behind simply by walking through the doors. You can speak freely about your same-sex date the night before without some passer-by reacting with disgust, hold your partner's hand or lean in for a kiss without checking your shoulder to see who is watching or, in most cases, use the bathrooms of your own choosing. Queerness becomes the norm in gay clubs. These spaces are supposed to be our sanctuaries, not cemeteries.
Indeed, the shooting was a tragedy. Not a human, American or Western tragedy, but a queer one. Regardless of the lone-wolf shooter's pledge of allegiance to ISIS in his 911 call, this was a hate crime against queers.
The same people arguing two weeks ago about legally restricting what bathrooms trans folks should use have used this massacre to justify Islamophobia. Muslims are constructed using an impossible stereotype with universal interests and anti-gay sentiment. These impossible stereotypes possess the same logics and justifications that authorize the oppression of queers and speak ill of our queer Muslim brothers and sisters.
Our pain is amplified with each contortion of this queer tragedy, and it hurts more because June marks the month of the Stonewall Riots.
Mr. Neufeld sees crocodile tears where I see crocodile prayers. He sees a disgusting public display where I see a queer pulse.
Still I genuinely invite you to PRIDE as my guest and friend. The change of pace might be good for you. Because contrary to your beliefs, you already have a straight PRIDE. I attend it 364 days a year.
Marc Sinclair
Prince George
