I’m not sure what to think of the murderer who killed all those people at the Pulse in Orlando, whose name I shall omit. One one hand, he professed sympathy to extremist Islam groups including ISIS. On the other hand, some stories state he was gay, patronized the Pulse for quite some time before attacking, and used gay dating apps. I think we can safely say that at some level, he was just plain fucking nuts, and had a lot of hatred and bile festering in him. Possibly due to cognitive dissonance between his sexuality and his religion.

But for this diary, I’m more interested in the general atmosphere that contributed to the killer’s madness. And a great deal of blame for the toxic atmosphere, that has created a sea of animus directed at the LGBTQIA community, lies squarely at the feet of the religious communities here in the U.S. and across the world.

Now I already know the first response: “Not all Christians!” “Not all Muslims!” “Not all Jews!”

OK, fine. I get it. There are quite a few chill Christians and Muslims and Jews and members of all the other religions that are good and decent people that aren’t assholes.

But a large number of religious people are not decent to the LGBTQIA community. And I dare to add that a majority of the clergy, the leadership in Islam and Christianity are systematically shitty to the gay community.

I will say it again. It is systemic. And the toxic rot goes all the way to the top in these two major religions.

Let’s start with Islam. It’s not the first, and won’t be the last religion to be thoroughly infected with the poison of homophobia in its practitioners and clergy, but it was probably the one that had the most influence on the nameless killer that attacked the LGBTQIA community in Orlando. How much influence he got is debatable, but he got a lot of messages like this:

x YouTube Video

Yeah. Killing queers is the compassionate thing to do. Way to represent for Islam, asshole.

But this is NOT an aberration. Hostility towards homosexuality and the LGBTQIA community is taught systematically across the Islamic world. How systematically? Go to Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or many of the other Islamic nations across the globe, and see how they treat gay people there. Over there, it is governments, openly pronouncing themselves as enforcers of Islamic morality, with squads of morality police walking the streets, enforcing Islamic prohibitions against homosexuality, at the barrel of a gun. In Saudi Arabia, if you’re caught coming out as gay, or are caught in a same-sex relationship, they could kill you. Slice your head off with a sword in Chop Chop Square. In Iran, they hang you for the crime of being gay. Or look at ISIS, throwing gay people off of tall buildings. All of the mainstream clergy in those countries are very clear in their denouncements of homosexuality.

The fact is that more often than not, in more places than not, Islam is toxic towards the gay community. Lethally toxic.

All of his life, the killer got the message that homosexuality, very likely his sexuality, was unacceptable, perverted, sinful, disgusting, and that because of the way he was born, he was a horrible person. Would all those cumulative messages from his religion, creating cognitive dissonance with his sexuality, drive him to a mental state that would lead to the horrible crimes he committed? Maybe.

But I wouldn’t want to be labeled an Islamophobic shitlord now, would I?

So, let’s now talk about Christianity. Here, the toxic rot is thick. It’s not hard to find examples. They are everywhere. Let’s start with this asshole preaching anti-gay bigotry with GOP presidential hopefuls in attendance.

(Warning, the following videos are full of homophobic hate-speech and are borderline NSFW/NSFL.)

x YouTube Video

But wait, there’s more. There’s this son of a bitch:

x YouTube Video

There’s this piece of shit, preaching anti-gay garbage while campaigning for Ted Cruz:

x YouTube Video

There’s this waste of precious oxygen:

x YouTube Video

And this bigoted scumbag:

x YouTube Video

And this murder-succoring cockroach (Warning, Steven Anderson is especially hateful, and had this especially horrible thing to say about the Orlando massacre...)

x YouTube Video

But here’s the thing.

These are just the famous ones.

Every Sunday, Every fucking Sunday in America, THOUSANDS of Christian priests, pastors, preachers, and ministers stand in the pulpits of their churches and tell millions of worshippers about how horrible homosexuality is, how it’s offensive to God, how it’s perverted and wicked, and how it’s inexplicably destroying America. Millions of people listen to this shit every fucking week, and then go and spread it around.

It’s shit like this that is even more toxic than the murdering scumbag who killed 50 people in the GLBT community in Orlando. He killed 50. But the toll of death and misery caused by hate-preaching is more insidious. How many people do homophobic Christian preachers and bible-thumpers kill? Let’s do a little bit of research.

According to the Trevor Project (www.thetrevorproject.org/...)

Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 24. • Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among young people ages 10 to 24. [1] • LGB youth are 4 times more likely, and questioning youth are 3 times more likely, to attempt suicide as their straight peers. [2] • Suicide attempts by LGB youth and questioning youth are 4 to 6 times more likely to result in injury, poisoning, or overdose that requires treatment from a doctor or nurse, compared to their straight peers. [3] • Nearly half of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their lives, and one quarter report having made a suicide attempt. [4] • LGB youth who come from highly rejecting families are 8.4 times as likely to have attempted suicide as LGB peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection. [5] • 1 out of 6 students nationwide (grades 9-12) seriously considered suicide in the past year. [6] • Each episode of LGBT victimization, such as physical or verbal harassment or abuse, increases the likelihood of self-harming behavior by 2.5 times on average. [7]

Finding estimates of how many members of the LGBT community commit suicide each year is difficult. However, according to www.speakforthem.org/…, a conservative estimate says 1,500 LGBT youth commit suicide every year. That’s a low estimate. The real numbers are probably far higher.

There’s the other acts of violence, the ones that usually do not make the news. Again, it’s hard to say how many people in the GLBT community have been killed this past year due to hate crimes. According to Erasing 76 Crimes:

In the United States, out of the almost 6,000 hate crimes committed in 2013, 20 percent (approximately 1,200) were based on victims’ sexual orientation, according to the FBI.

50 killed by one shooter. 1,500 LGBT youth committing suicide. 1,200 LGBT victims of hate crimes, some of them murders. Then there’s the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Well over half a million dead.

Six figures.

Many of them members of the LGBTQIA community, in an epidemic exacerbated because the Reagan Administration deliberately sat on their asses rather than helping gay people. They refused to speak up, because Reagan was such a loving Christian. They refused to address the problem, and just let people die. While televangelist scumbags like Jerry Falwell proclaimed HIV/AIDS to be a punishment from God against the gay community.

Six figure death tolls. Just talk to anyone close to circles in the gay community, and sooner or later, you’ll hear of departed loved ones. Everywhere you go.

That shithead in Orlando killed 50 with his own hands and his own guns, which is horrible. Religious toxicity, through direct and indirect effects, have killed orders of magnitude more people in the gay community.

Religion has a lot to answer for. Across the world, in churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, and other places of worship, thousands of religious leaders are spreading toxic homophobic garbage to worshippers, systematically creating a toxic atmosphere of hate that pervades all of society, and makes the world a far shittier place for those who are members of the LGBTQIA community.

Yes, yes, I know, Not All Religious people. But millions of them, all the way to the top. The rot is systemic.

Our major organized religions have a lot to answer for. They have blood on their collective hands.

So that’s why I say FUCK RELIGION! This massacre in Orlando has simply made me more atheistic, and more hostile to this toxic nonsense than ever.

Religion has been a plague on humanity since the beginning of civilization.

Religion robs us of reason, undermines our sanity, and brings nothing but death and misery to our species. It makes people forgo their own happiness for imaginary paradises that do not exist. It exalts unquestioned obedience to authority, empowers narcissistic monsters in funny hats, and makes science into a sin. Religion encourages us to talk to imaginary friends instead of taking real positive action to help our fellow human beings.

Religion regresses the human mind to one of a six year old believing in Santa Claus.

Religion divides us into tribes, and drives us to hate each other until the heat death of the universe, all while showing warm, fuzzy figures of love in whose name we should hate others. It makes delusion a duty, bigotry a commandment, violence into virtue, and coexistence worthy of hellfire.

Christopher Hitchens was right. RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING.

/me drops the mic.