Orlando 2016

I left Orlando the day before the shooting.

My family and I had been trolling the usual tourist haunts for the week: the Disneyworld theme parks and Universal Studios. We took a ride in the Orlando Eye, and I made acquaintance with wax figure Tom Hanks at Madame Tussaud's.

It was a typical Orlando vacation, bittersweet only in the fact that prior to leaving we had declared it would be our last to the theme park capital before the kids are fully grown.

We arrived at the start of Gay Days, the annual LGBTQ community gathering across Disneyworld parks. It was a scheduling coincidence that was an anticipated curiosity, but a curiosity that faded quickly with more pressing concerns of the weather.

In between getting drenched by tropical rain storms, only to be steamed dry as the heavy clouds traded skies for blistering heat, we had the chance to interact with individuals, couples, and families of the LGBTQ community from across the globe.

As I look at the photos of the men and women who were ruthlessly murdered, I do not pretend to fully understand what members of the LGBTQ community might face in openly living the truth of who they are as individuals. I also do not pretend to understand the courage it takes to simply be in such contrast to the majority of society, and what it takes to live daily knowing that many, far too many in this supposedly enlightened age, still condemn who they are both collectively and individually.

What I do understand is this: every one of those men and women was a human being. Each one is someone's son or daughter, a brother or sister, husband or wife, a friend.

Every one of them had dreams and plans and aspirations that carried them through their days.

The twist of evil that frayed the murderer's mind into believing he had the right to do what he did is inexplicable to those of us going about the business of our lives. Whether it was religious dogma or political radicalization, or the decaying compost of hubris, arrogance, and latent hatred, the result was the same.

Innocents died.

Human beings going about their lives were murdered simply because someone didn't believe they had a right to exist. The zealotry that allowed this follower of Islam to commit murder is only the loudest repeat in the ammunition fired at a group of individuals desiring nothing more than to honestly live their lives.

So...Will you raise your voice in opposition? Or will you stand in silence?