On this eve of the two-month anniversary of the mass shooting of gay* people at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando — the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter in American history, and the deadliest incident of violence against gay people in U.S. history — John Pavlovitz has re-posted this 13 June reflection from his blog on his Facebook page today:
49 LGBTQ children were murdered in a nightclub in Orlando this week.
49 children were born.
49 children lived.
49 children were loved.
49 children deserve to be treasured.
49 children deserve to be remembered.
49 children deserve that we all do better.
If you read what I posted earlier today, it will be obvious that I'm sharing John Pavlovitz's reflection in tandem with that earlier posting.
* I am using the term "gay" as a felicitous shorthand comprising all those included in the more cumbersome acronym LGBTQI.
The photo collage is from Tampa Bay Times, as that newspaper named and provided biographies and photos of those murdered at the Pulse nightclub. NPR (along with a number of other media outlets) provided a moving compilation of the names and stories of those murdered at Pulse — see here.