Pride flag at half-mast for Orlando victims

A Pride flag was raised, then lowered to half-mast, in front of Victoria City Hall on Monday in honour of the victims of Sunday’s shootings at a gay-friendly nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

T.J. Furlani isn’t about to let the weekend’s mass killing at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, push him into the shadows. “I’m not going to stop living my life and I’m not to going to cower in fear and hide away,” Furlani said Monday. “That’s what they want, that’s how they win.”

Furlani was part of a crowd of about 200 that gathered at Victoria City Hall to see the Pride flag raised and then lowered to half-mast in recognition of the Orlando victims, which stood Monday at 49 dead and about 50 injured. The Canadian flag was also lowered to half-mast.

Furlani attended with Craig Dales, his husband of 12 years, who said the massacre in Orlando brings back difficult memories. “It brings up everything that I’ve been through from being a kid, being bullied, being beaten up. It just brings it all to the front.”

Dales said what happened in Orlando is hard to comprehend.

The shooter has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American-born Muslim who pledged allegiance to Islamic State and other radical groups.

“Whether terrorism or just plain hate, it’s not something that we can live with,” Dales said.

Kathy Oxner, who was at the Victoria gathering with Mary Benson, her partner of 28 years, recalled being chased out of a bar years ago in Vancouver. “[The Orlando killings] just brought home that fear and intensity that we lived through that night.”

Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps told the crowd that it is important to send a message to Orlando.

“Orlando is a long way from Victoria, but in Victoria we stand together today in solidarity and as a statement that Victoria is an inclusive community,” Helps said. “We’re here to mourn, we’re here to grieve, yet we are here to stand strong together and to affirm the power of love over hate, the power of all love, any old kind of love in all its diverse forms. Let’s send a giant rainbow beam of love all the way from Victoria across the continent to Orlando . . . .

“This could have been you, it could have been me, it could have been any of us: gay, lesbian, queer, bitrans, two-spirited-plus folks who go to such bars to find community or even just to dance freely with the people we love.”

The mass killing has “touched very close to home for people in our own community who still face discrimination based on who they love, who still face hatred,” Helps said.

Brian Young said Monday’s gathering shows that some things have not changed. “I thought this crap was over, but it’s not,” he said. “There’s sick people in this world. This guy may have had other intents, but he decided where he was sending his message. That seems fairly obvious.”

Michael McDonald, who was draped in a rainbow flag, said the Orlando tragedy clearly resonates with people in Victoria and elsewhere. “It’s something that has a real impact on so many people.”

Local reaction began with a Sunday night vigil at city hall, where a memorial still stands against an outside wall. Names of the dead in Orlando have been written on the wall in chalk.

Erin Kicks said she continues to feel “relatively safe” as a gay woman in Victoria. “There’s always a small piece of me that doesn’t feel safe, but I try to just persevere and rise above.”

Coraline Thomas, a trans woman, said some people she knows were already living in fear before the attack. “Actually a lot of my friends are too scared to leave the home, even here in Victoria.”

B.C. Premier Christy Clark said on her Twitter feed that she is “incredibly saddened by the evil brutality” of the shootings.

Victoria NDP MP Murray Rankin said he is proud of how Victoria is addressing the tragedy. “We acknowledge that this is, I believe the prime minister is right in saying, an act of domestic terrorism aimed at the LGBTQ community in particular and my heart goes out to the victims and their families.”

The timing of the Orlando shooting, right after the death of prominent Muslim Muhammad Ali, is especially troubling to Mustafa Abousaleh, 28. The Victoria Muslim worries that all the goodwill following Ali’s death has been overshadowed.

“After the parting of a prominent international figure like Muhammad Ali and all the speeches from so many people of so many different religious groups about his contributions, then this event comes along and seems to erase all the goodwill,” Abousaleh said.

Originally from Syria, the software consultant has lived 14 years in Canada and said it’s demoralizing to forever feel he must distance himself from the activities of groups like ISIS.

“It’s a known fact by now that not every Muslim is a terrorist, but it seems pathetic that we have to keep repeating that over and over and over.”