It has been an emotional few days. Saturday, June 11th would have been my dad’s 67th birthday. I miss him every day. Yesterday was a massacre at the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida. Even though I am across the country and did not know any of the victims, it has hit me very hard. I am scared, sad, angry and just emotional. There are so many issues that this brings up: LGBT, gun control, politics, and religion. I consider myself to be an educated person and some would say naive, but tragedies like this bring out the best and worst in people, especially in this election year.

One thing that has me horribly upset is people wanting to get rid of a religious group (Muslims). They don’t want their children learning about Islam. They post pictures on Facebook of wanting to play Cowboys and Muslims. Yes, the radicalization of religion is wrong and scary, but wanting to deport someone based on religion is wrong (how quickly we forget the Holocaust, but that is a topic for another blog).

We are all angry and have our own ways of dealing with them. As it has been said an attack against Americans in one place is an attack against all Americans. As a gay man, this is definitely an attack against me and my friends who live here in California.