It comes as no surprise to us LGBT people to learn that Omar Mateen had visited Pulse, the gay club in Orlando where he shot dead 49 people on Sunday, on a number of previous occasions, most probably because he was drawn to it by his own conflicted desires (Could Mateen’s conflicted sexuality be part of the story?, 15 June). This syndrome needs to be properly understood if we are to make sense of these outrages. We often have to deal with inbred or received anti-gay attitudes within ourselves as we engage in the process of coming out, which are not always easy to overcome. For some this proves nigh on impossible and guilt feelings then develop into self-hatred, which in turn seeks release in violence – often directed against out LGBT people, who constitute an increasingly visible challenge to them.
More often than not religious attitudes play a significant part in this. I’m not saying that religion is the sole cause, but it undoubtedly powerfully reinforces guilt and anti-gay prejudice. In this country the Church of England needs to seriously question the part that it has played and to an important extent still plays in demonising homosexuality.
Despite the very few biblical pronouncements, usually in the more obscure parts of the Bible, there is little or no justification today for regarding condemnation of all homosexual acts as a central part of Christian teaching, as many modern theologians have argued. The leadership of the church under Archbishop Welby must now stop dithering around and get on speedily with revising their official teaching on the subject if they wish their expressions of opposition to violence against LGBT people to be seen as anything more than sanctimonious bleating.
Nicholas Billingham
London
• Barack Obama is right to eschew the term “radical Islam” (Trump’s reaction is betrayal of US values, Obama says, 15 June). Islamic State and “lone wolves” like Omar Mateen are characterised not by radicalism but by a banality of belief. I am put in mind of the Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt’s controversial conclusion following the Eichmann trial that the horrors of the Holocaust had resulted not from radically evil thinking, but from the total absence of moral reasoning; from “thought-defying banality”. She argued that only the good has depth and can be radical. I speak as a non-Muslim, but it seems to me that the misuse of the term “radical Islam” to explain hateful acts of terror perniciously distracts from “the good” in Islam.
Professor Hartley Dean
Flamstead, Hertfordshire
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
