The Omar Mateen Orlando Pulse Mass Shooting was a merger of evil and hatred – perhaps, even Omar’s self-hatred. It was a merger of Terror and Hatred. It was the renunciation of allegiance to the United States by an American-born citizen in favor of a 911-documenting call by Omar to pledge allegiance to ISIS – to avoid other terror causing groups from taking credit without having inspired Omar, as ISIS did. Omar did not want his joint act of hatred & terror to be plagiarized by uninspiring-to-him jihad groups or confused by historian-autopsy.

Never before has the LBGT community suffered so much – and as a result shaken the collective soul of our nation more – for all of us to be just American – young old, black white, able and disabled, gun-loving and gun-fear, and proud-straight and proud-LBGT. It’s the ultimate of E Pluribus Unum.

Hollywood had done a remarkable job to lessen cultural hostility to any community, and replace it with pride -for each human being to be human as they and/or God chose.

A while back, I was struck that the Indian Supreme Court had decreed a 3rd sexual gender: transgender. Given the recent legal fight over bathrooms in schools – based upon a person’s sex, which takes the concept of pro-choice to a whole new level, the Indian Supreme Court’s wisdom and solving some of this civil rights controversy is now more apparent.

But beyond the typical political debate about guns, every time there is a massacre, this particular event in Orlando is unique because it is a casserole of many geo-political issues, social issues and civil rights issues at the cutting edge of law and society. Indeed, President Obama’s reluctance to use the term radical Islam has become more political fodder for the uninformed, misguided or reckless. Taking the refrain from the NRA, guns don’t kill people, people kill people, I want to remind all those who, perhaps out of a sense of grief and outrage, want to marry the term radical to Islam, that religion does not kill people, people kill people; akin to the NRA’s wisdom.

While I am not happy about the faded Red Line in Syria drawn by President Obama, I celebrate his wisdom in abstaining to engage in a religious dispute where only the members of the specific religion, Islam, are both credentialed and qualified to engage in. I recall well that Islam at its origin was dedicated to science, higher education and the arts. Indeed, the folklore regaled us all about the attempts to convert lead into gold in science labs centuries ago. Perhaps the passing of the Prophet Mohammed has left the world with the longest running estate fight between the Sunni and the Shia. As for me, I am most comfortable following the principle enunciated well by Pope Francis: practice your own faith and respect everyone else’s faith. I’d add, let’s try a little more love and a little less hate; the world is really small and we must really find a way for the human family to live in peace. Hat tip to Kazakhstan President Nazarbayev’s Manifesto for the 21st century: which I described as war on war. In the meanwhile, all of us must defend our nation from enemies foreign and domestic.”