Heartbroken
Lubbockites unite in prayer for Orlando attack victims
BY josie musico A-J MEDIA
Above, Rev. Tony Thieman-Samora speaks during the vigil.
Members of the Metropolitan Community Church held a vigil monday in response to the shooting in Orlando.
Kay Soules speaks during a vigil Monday night in Lubbock.
Fifty candles burned slowly, carefully placed in dishes above rainbow-themed cloths.
Each represented a human life, tragically lost in violence.
But Rev. Tony Thieman-Somora offered a message of hope for those victims and others affected by the massacre Sunday morning at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida:
“It is devastating news, but we come here and remember we are a people of hope, a people who cannot be bullied. This violence must stop.”
Speaking at the Metropolitan Community Church he leads in Central Lubbock, the pastor encouraged visitors at the prayer vigil Monday night to avoid returning the shooter’s message of hate. But he didn’t recommend being afraid or quiet, either:
“It must stop, and we are the voices. Let’s remember and lift our voices. We cannot sit back idly and see what has happened to our brothers and sisters.”
The Associated Press reported 29-year-old Omar Mateen brought an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle and a handgun to the Pulse nightclub, then opened fire. He was eventually killed in a standoff with a SWAT team. At least 50 people were killed, including Mateen, while 53 were reportedly wounded.
The Metropolitan Community Church is traditionally supportive of same-sex marriage and other gay rights. Many of its members identify as lesbian, gay, transgender or bisexual.
A somber atmosphere accompanied the vigil; it was hard to find a dry eye. Visitors wrote messages of support on sticky notes, then one by one posted them on a board at the front of the church.
Guest speaker Kevin Young is the pastor of St. John’s United Methodist Church, across from the Texas Tech campus, and a self-described LGBT ally. He expressed admiration for gay peoples' ambition, but suggested the fight for civil rights is nowhere near over:
“I figured out I don’t wanna live in a world without gay people ... people who are alive and vivacious and make me better than who I am. The grievous pain that we feel because of what happened yesterday makes us realize their strength, their gifts, their courage, their beauty. We have to take that strength, that courage, that beauty that we share with those people and change the world with it. We have to change the current state of affairs. It’s not gonna change by itself.”
Thieman-Somora recalled the text he received at 4 a.m. Sunday from the pastor of Joy Metropolitan Community Church, a sister church in Orlando, telling him of the attack. That church later released a statement condemning the violence and what the church described as the loose gun laws that allowed it to happen. Mateen purchased the assault weapon legally, despite having been the subject of an FBI investigation.
The letter also described the irony of meeting to mourn so many murder victims in the same location supporters had met a year earlier to rally for marriage equality.
Thieman-Somora read,
“Love wins.
Although the circumstances were different,
the theme was the same.
Hate tries, but love wins.”
josephine.musico@lubbockonline.com
766-8796
Above, Rev. Tony Thieman-Samora speaks during the vigil.
Members of the Metropolitan Community Church held a vigil monday in response to the shooting in Orlando.
Kay Soules speaks during a vigil Monday night in Lubbock.
Fifty candles burned slowly, carefully placed in dishes above rainbow-themed cloths.
Each represented a human life, tragically lost in violence.
But Rev. Tony Thieman-Somora offered a message of hope for those victims and others affected by the massacre Sunday morning at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida:
“It is devastating news, but we come here and remember we are a people of hope, a people who cannot be bullied. This violence must stop.”
Speaking at the Metropolitan Community Church he leads in Central Lubbock, the pastor encouraged visitors at the prayer vigil Monday night to avoid returning the shooter’s message of hate. But he didn’t recommend being afraid or quiet, either:
“It must stop, and we are the voices. Let’s remember and lift our voices. We cannot sit back idly and see what has happened to our brothers and sisters.”
“It must stop, and we are the voices. Let’s remember and lift our voices. We cannot sit back idly and see what has happened to our brothers and sisters.”
The Associated Press reported 29-year-old Omar Mateen brought an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle and a handgun to the Pulse nightclub, then opened fire. He was eventually killed in a standoff with a SWAT team. At least 50 people were killed, including Mateen, while 53 were reportedly wounded.
The Metropolitan Community Church is traditionally supportive of same-sex marriage and other gay rights. Many of its members identify as lesbian, gay, transgender or bisexual.
A somber atmosphere accompanied the vigil; it was hard to find a dry eye. Visitors wrote messages of support on sticky notes, then one by one posted them on a board at the front of the church.
Guest speaker Kevin Young is the pastor of St. John’s United Methodist Church, across from the Texas Tech campus, and a self-described LGBT ally. He expressed admiration for gay peoples' ambition, but suggested the fight for civil rights is nowhere near over:
“I figured out I don’t wanna live in a world without gay people ... people who are alive and vivacious and make me better than who I am. The grievous pain that we feel because of what happened yesterday makes us realize their strength, their gifts, their courage, their beauty. We have to take that strength, that courage, that beauty that we share with those people and change the world with it. We have to change the current state of affairs. It’s not gonna change by itself.”
Thieman-Somora recalled the text he received at 4 a.m. Sunday from the pastor of Joy Metropolitan Community Church, a sister church in Orlando, telling him of the attack. That church later released a statement condemning the violence and what the church described as the loose gun laws that allowed it to happen. Mateen purchased the assault weapon legally, despite having been the subject of an FBI investigation.
The letter also described the irony of meeting to mourn so many murder victims in the same location supporters had met a year earlier to rally for marriage equality.
Thieman-Somora read,
“Love wins.
Although the circumstances were different,
the theme was the same.
Hate tries, but love wins.”
josephine.musico@lubbockonline.com
766-8796
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