The Orlando, Florida, shooting, the deadliest terror attack since 9/11, has led to much speculation regarding the root cause of Omar Mateen’s actions.
Doug Bauder, director of the IU’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Student Support Services, said though it might never be known with absolute certainty, Mateen was likely struggling with his own sexuality.
“I remember thinking I can’t be gay,” he recalled about his days as a pastor. “Most of us who are gay have at least some experience of internalized homophobia, and it’s devastating stuff.”
He recalled an MSNBC interview in which Rachel Maddow spoke with a gay Muslim who said he wanted to commit similar acts of terror, but who is now trying to help others overcome their self-hatred.
Bauder explained Mateen was bullied, so he bullied others. His father abused him, so he abused his wife. “He was clearly fucked up,” he said.
“Radicalized Islam or Christianity leads us in the same direction of thinking we’ve got the answers,” Bauder said. “A large part of it was his misinterpretation (of his religion).”
Bauder said it is dangerous to declare Islam as fully responsible for the attack.
Bauder said he does not know how to prevent another Orlando from happening, but claimed we must understand one another’s differences and similarities and accept them.
“I am always hopeful for the future,” he said. “I can remember a time in my life when the response to that would not have been with the amount of love and concern and compassion that this has generated.”
Leslie Lenkowsky, professor of practice in public affairs and philanthropy at IU, was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2001 as CEO of the Corporation for National Community Service, which seeks to improve local United States’ communities.
“I arrived on the scene within a week of 9/11,” he said. “We are in fact in a very difficult conflict with an ideologically-driven adversary.”
Lenkowsky also said he has experienced such acts of terror for the last 15 years.
Lenkowsky said he believes Islamic terrorists find their identity in “a sect that espouses very radical, anti-U.S., anti-gay ideas.”
“If you want to find the places that most espouse hatred of gays, you’re going to look in some of these societies that have been very hospitable to radical Islam,” he said.
Lendowsky also said he believes the availability of guns is problematic, but that it is not easily solved.
Currently the director of the IU Civic Leaders Center, professor Paul Helmke served as a three-time mayor to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and as president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
“The question is not ‘should we politicize it?’” Helmke said about gun control. “But, ‘What should we do about it?’ Because we keep seeing these shootings and our response as a country is to do nothing.”
Helmke said it is too easy for dangerous people to buy firearms, easier in fact, than getting a job at McDonald’s.
“I am not anti-gun,” he said. “But along with gun rights there are gun risks.”
