Orlando terrorist attack: When the facts don’t fit the narrative

by Dan Lucas

In the early hours of Sunday, June 12^th, Omar Mir Seddique Mateen went into the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and murdered 49 people and wounded more than 50. Mateen was subsequently killed in a gunfight with police at the nightclub.

CBS News called it “the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.”

It now joins previous Islamic extremist terror attacks on U.S. soil in Garland, Texas, at the military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and in San Bernardino, California – all in 2015. It joins the 2014 New York subway hatchet attack on police, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, the Little Rock recruiting office shooting and the Fort Hood shooting in 2009, as well as the two attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993 and on 9/11 in 2001.

CNN reported Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS and mentioned the Boston Marathon bombers during his rampage while on a 911 call, and CBS News noted that he was a “devout Muslim.” Mateen was born in New York but both his parents were from Afghanistan. According to CBS News, Mateen’s father “has well-known anti-American views and is an ideological supporter of the Afghan Taliban.”

Speaking to the nation on the day of the terror attack, President Obama said “this was an act of terror and an act of hate.” He called out the attack as also being an act of hate because Mateen had “targeted a nightclub” where “fellow Americans — who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender,” “came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live.”

The day after the attack, the president stated that the attack “took place at a club frequented by the LGBT community” and noted “organizations like ISIL or organizations like al Qaeda, or those who have perverted Islam” target “gays and lesbians.”

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told CNN on the day of the attack that radical Islamic extremists target the LGBT community quite often, and noted that the attack “occurred during LGBT Pride Month.” CNN also noted the attack occurred during Ramadan, and that back in May there had been a “call by ISIS to its supporters in the United States to launch attacks during Ramadan, the Islamic Holy Month”.

Severe persecution of the LGBT community is not limited to radical Islamic groups like ISIS. According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association’s 2015 report on State Sponsored Homophobia, five countries actually implement a death penalty for same-sex sexual acts. They are all Islamic countries: the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, the Republic of the Sudan, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Yemen.

Orlando was an extremist Islamic terrorist attack on U.S. soil. It was also an attack that apparently specifically targeted the LGBT community.

It’s barely been covered, but Newsweek/Reuters did report that Mateen “was registered as a Democrat.”

Because the facts of this terror attack don’t fit the prescribed narrative of the left and many in the media, there have been numerous attempts at distraction and diversion. That includes President Obama when he spoke on the day of the terror attack – already he was trying to blame guns but couldn’t bring himself to say anything about radical Islam. It includes calls for banning people on the no-fly list from buying guns when Mateen wasn’t on the no-fly list.

Just because they are concerned they’ll be seen for their failed Mideast foreign policies and for failing to keep us safe doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look the problem straight on.

Instead we are getting barraged with bizarre attempts to hammer this story into some cherished narratives.

Additionally, we are repeatedly cautioned by the left and most of the media that we shouldn’t judge all of Islam by the acts of radical Islamic jihadists. Fair enough.

But then why don’t those same judgement protections apply to Christians, conservatives and gun owners? Can you imagine what would be happening if this had been perpetrated by a white, Christian Republican? Every element of that would be splattered all over the news, all the time, for months and years to come.

I look forward to the time when we can have honest public discourse about the very real problems facing our country, and when we have a media that acts as referee and not as part of one of the teams.

To read more from Dan, visit www.dan-lucas.com