Silent and solemn faces were lit by the soft glow of candles as members of the OU community stood together grieving the loss of life in the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Around 20 members of OU’s community joined together on the South Oval at the Unity Garden in a candlelight vigil held by the Gender + Equality Center Monday night to memorialize those harmed and killed through violence targeted at the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
The gathering was in response to the Nov. 19 shooting at Club Q, a 2SLGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs. The shooting left five dead and 18 injured.
Quan Phan, GEC LGBTQ+ program coordinator, opened the vigil by speaking about the shooting and emphasizing the importance of community during this time.
“There are no words that can describe the sorrow that we feel, nor sufficient to feel the pain that we collectively suffer. However, seeing the community gathering here tonight gives me hope and comfort,” Phan said. “We’re here together, not only to honor the people impacted at Club Q, but also to share the loss and pain from each other, helping each other, realizing that we're not alone.”
Erin Simpson, GEC director, said she did not want to give platform to the “hateful rhetoric” that spurred the Club Q shooting.
“I'm interested in talking about (those) who protected, and together, saved their friends, family and a bar full of strangers," Simpson said. "Make no mistake, there is a time and place to engage in how we got here and the rhetoric that pushed us here, but tonight, I am interested in turning my face toward the family I have found."
Alexandria Petre, an OU law student, said she came to the vigil because, as a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community, she wanted to support those that are feeling the loss and need comfort in this time.
Ezra Koenig, LGBTQ+ Student Alliance president, said it is important to have events like the candlelight vigil to support students.
“It makes a big impact as an institution to say, ‘Hey, we see you. You’re hurting. We see that there has been harm, and we, as a department and an institution, are here to support you through that,’” Koenig said.
Koenig also emphasized the importance of standing against “willful ignorance.”
“A lot of people think that queerphobia, homophobia and transphobia doesn't happen anymore, but it still happens,” Koenig said. “It's happening every day. It can be small, it can be big, but it happens.”
Keane Hauck, a psychology junior and GEC peer educator, said he feels events like the vigil are important to fight fear that comes with tragedies like the Club Q shooting.
“When it comes to violence that is targeted with hatred in mind, it's so easy to see those things and to just feel scared and to feel alone, but you’re not alone,” Hauck said.
Ann Schafer, GEC associate director of education and outreach, said she hopes in the wake of tragedies like these students know that they are loved, cared for and supported by OU.
“We don't want students to isolate their grief (but to) be able to share that, because we want to listen, we want to talk to them and want to help them heal,” Schafer said.
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Come with me in the Wayback Machine to the time of the Arkansas Grifter, Bill Clinton. During his administration in the early 90’s, before the GEC, Multiculturalism was the favored torture device of Human Resource departments everywhere. Tolerance was the Holy Grail. A couple of eons go by and in 2015 the “We just want to get married” gang had their first legal marriage in Massachusetts. What could possibly be wrong with putting up with people who are different from you, especially as long as they are not hurting you in any way, shape or form, or attempting to recruit, groom and deviate your kindergarten and grade school children.
But tolerance was never what any of this was about. It is about forced compliance, and was from the first. One day it’s tolerance. The next, it’s acceptance. The next, it’s celebration. Ultimately, you will go to jail if you disagree with the celebration.
A wonderful example of this comes from our neighbor to the north. Justin Trudeau - paragon of asinine, virtueless leftism - he was pretty clear about it. Trudeau recently made a visit to Canada's "Drag Race" spin-off. For those who are unfamiliar with it, "Drag Race" is a competition/beauty pageant show where drag queens compete to become the "next drag superstar." The obsession with drag is much more recent than “we just want to get married”. In keeping with that obsession, Trudeau visited the show and said this:
“Can we move beyond 'tolerate' and start embracing and loving and accepting and learning from and being challenged by. That's how you build a resilient society, that's what we're trying to do in Canada and we got a lot of work still to do.”
It isn't enough to merely tolerate different people, you have to "embrace and accept" them or you're a bigot. This isn't even couched in old-fashioned "diversity" language anymore. The pernicious pivot from "tolerance" to "inclusion" - championed and advanced by corporate HR departments and academia with their DiversityInclusionEquity obsession - is complete and we're on to the next chapter. Forget tolerance and forget inclusion - neither is sufficient. You must love it or you're a bigot.
Yet, oddly, if you're not down with the program, you don't have to be tolerated. You have to be destroyed. Tolerance - and inclusion, and "embracing and loving" - do not, of course, apply to you. After all, you're bad. If you will merely tolerate different kinds of people and get on with your life but not embrace, celebrate and love them, you're a monster. And speaking of different kinds, the reason for the Expanding Alphabet People is the need to include amongst themselves every conceivable sexual mental illness that can be imagined or expressed. Just look at Joe Biden’s Nuclear Puppy Daddy, Sam Brinton.
It isn't just Trudeau, of course. This is the attitude of everyone on the Left. Justin just says the quiet part out loud.
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