“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.”
~ Albert Einstein
My heart goes out to all the families and loved ones of the 49 victims in last week’s tragic Orlando nightclub massacre.
While professionals are scrambling to uncover the “why” behind this egregious act, it appears that one possible driving force could be the shooter’s sexual orientation.
Reaction formation. It’s a fancy psych term for a common defense mechanism, which is essentially an extreme overreaction to a quality one wishes to disown. This was perfectly and infamously displayed a few years ago by Mark Foley, the Florida Congressman who was a fervent opponent of child pornography, even introducing the “Child Modeling Exploitation Prevention Act of 2002” to the House. Foley resigned from his post after an investigation of inappropriate conduct with two young male pages. The Bard said it best in “Hamlet”: “Me thinks thou dost protest too much.”
Was Omar Mateen gay, and part of a culture that forbade homosexuality? Another speculation is that he was simply casing the Pulse Nightclub for months before the attack, and it was simply a terrorist act. It could be an amalgam of the two.
As we learn more about the motivation behind this unspeakable horror, let’s do remember that many religions have extremists. Christianity has seen its share, with assaults on Planned Parenthood, Neo-Nazis, and more.
“An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.” Attributed to M. Gandhi