Thousands find peace, comfort in vigils to honor Orlando victims

States from Maine to New Mexico held vigils and marches to honor the victims who died over the weekend at a shooting at the popular gay nightclub Pulse in Florida on Sunday.

|
Craig Rubadoux/Florida Today/AP
People pay respect at a memorial at the Dr. P. Phillips Center for the Arts in Orlando, Fla., during a vigil on Monday honoring the victims of a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub on Sunday.

With candlelight vigils, marches, and moments of silence in state capitols, thousands of people gathered in states across the country Monday to mourn the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., where 50 people were killed over the weekend.

The mass shooting has sparked political debates about gun control and the role of Islam in terrorism. But for many vigil attendees, the moment calls for a calmer, more unifying response of peace and comfort.

In Orlando, thousands gathered to honor the victims and survivors of the shooting. Many said Pulse was more than just a nightclub, playing a significant role in the city’s gay and lesbian community as a place to gather and find solace.

“Pulse gave me confidence, made me realize I was normal and so much like everyone else," Cathleen Daus, a former employee at the club, told the Associated Press.

At a gathering at a church near the French Quarter in New Orleans, Stephanie Oshrin, echoed those thoughts. “I’m part of a community where there are not a lot of safe places and there’s a real sadness that comes when one of those places you think is safe is violated,” she told the AP.

The vigils held across the country drew diverse crowds and featured different types of memorials, from a moment of silence in Alaska’s state capitol to a crowd of more than 2,000 in Los Angeles who gathered to read the names of the shooting victims aloud.

“Let's all today pledge an allegiance of love to them and to their families who are suffering so deeply," singer Lady Gaga told the crowd in California, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The rainbow flag flew on California’s state capitol and the state Senate chamber and small communities in Idaho gathered to remember the victims, while a gathering in Boston, Mass., included speeches in Spanish and English.

Some people noted that the shooting came in the midst of events to mark Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride month, with vigils held in locations that became significant milestones in gay-rights activism, such as New York’s Stonewall Inn.

As crowds chanted “love beats hate,” attendees and spectators at a rally at the popular gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village listened to speeches from elected officials, including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Internationally, some people said they wanted to mourn the victims while also protesting increasing anti-Islamic sentiment that could come with the shooting, as police say the shooter pledged allegiance to the Islamic State before arriving at the Florida nightclub.

“The reason we’re here is to show solidarity with people in Florida. We’re also aware that there are people out there who have been engaging in Islamophobia,” Jake Johnstone, who attended a vigil in London’s Soho neighborhood, told the Guardian.

“A lot of comments have been made that the blame for this is with a religion rather than homophobia and hatred,” he said.

Thousands of miles away, a Muslim-American women’s group expressed similar concerns as they held a candlelight vigil in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington D.C., saying they had gathered to stand together against anti-gay, anti-transgender, and anti-Muslim violence.

In Baltimore, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake echoed those thoughts. “I think the only way to combat that hate is not a ministry of words, but of presence. Just being here is speaking volumes about who we are as Baltimoreans. We stand together," she said.

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Thousands find peace, comfort in vigils to honor Orlando victims
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2016/0614/Thousands-find-peace-comfort-in-vigils-to-honor-Orlando-victims
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe