I can't, however, think of another way to open this missive, so here goes:

"God opened His armory to deal with proud fag america. 20 dead in mass shooting at #Orlando "gay" "

"Florida Pulse gay club attacked I’m so happy someone decided to start shooting perverts instead of innocent people."

"That is the right target for such shootings. Gays should be shot for disrespecting the natural order."

These quotes are just a small sample of the hatred that spilled out on social media following this weekend's massacre at a gay nightclub in Florida. One or two of these appeared in my social media feeds, and initially I simply wrote them off as another example of why this planet needs an extinction level event urgently. I mean, stupidity and bigotry are an everyday thing, right?

Today, however, while sitting in a prayer service held by members of the gay community in Bloemfontein, I realised how wrong I was.

These weren't just bigots expressing their support for an ordinary murderer. These were people so consumed by their hatred, they failed to grasp that 50 families had just lost people they loved. Hundreds of friends are in mourning, not because of the usual idiotic reasons, like racial or religious violence, which we have now become totally accustomed to, but because of who they f***ing loved! Because of who they, through no fault or choice of their own, cuddled up with at night, shared stories of their day with, and maybe wanted to start a family with.

Yep. Even love needs to be policed. The most pure, most benevolent of human emotions. Unlike race and religion, which are social constructs that can be used to divide and manipulated to benefit specific groupings, the same can't be said for love.
 
Can it? How can another human's need to feel safe, and share their innermost thoughts and dreams while sharing in those of another, possibly warrant such hatred? How does the private sexual conduct of two, three, or however many consenting adults choosing to be in a relationship, inspire so much insecurity that one not only supports their murder, but absolutely revels in it?

Of course, religion has emerged as the main motivator for both the act, as well as the support thereof. But once again, I struggle to understand how people, even those who still require an imaginary friend to act as their moral compass, can behave this way.

The irony, of course, is that these are the same religious zealots who claim to worship a God of love. An all-powerful, all-mighty being, too busy to stop poverty and famine, but who totally cares about who you're having sex with. The levels of mental gymnastics necessary to unravel this cognitive dissonance would make Nadia Comaneci look like Steven Hawking on a jungle gym.

The irony of having a prayer service for people killed by a religious extremist wasn't lost on the members of Bloemfontein's gay community though. But, they saw their gathering in an NG Church - that former bastion of racial, sexual and all flavours of bigotry - as a means of finding some hope. Some hope that not all cisgender, or religious people share Omar Mateen's hatred.

The church, they say, needs to become a refuge for a people who have now lost one of the few safe spaces they had. Almost like the reclamation of the word queer, they want it to represent a coming together of enlightened people. And God knows, right now they definitely need something, and somewhere to cling to in order to remain sane. Even if that something may have been the cause of much of their troubles.

Why?Because to many LQBTIQ people, gay clubs are much more than just social venues. They are places where those who are outcasts almost everywhere else in the world could go and simply be themselves.

All of us have at some point felt left out. Whether you were the jock, struggling in maths class, or the nerdy kid who got picked last for every sports team. Or maybe you were the kid with the big ears, or the stutter, or, or, or... Point is, none of us have gone through life perfectly free of insecurities, and great at every single thing we tried our hand at. We all needed that place we could go when everything and everyone seemed to be against us. I certainly have.

For a group which, despite the legalisation of gay marriage in some countries, is still probably one of the most persecuted and maligned everywhere else, gay clubs represent that safe space. That space where no one judge their particular kind of "deviance" from society's sexual norms. Where the bi-, poly-, and any other -sexual could simply be themselves.

On Sunday morning, the idea of such a place existing was shot to pieces.

From now on, the LGBTIQ community will be on guard even in these former havens.

It's nearly impossible to imagine a single positive thing to emerge from this, but maybe we can take solace in the way it has united Christian and Muslim bigots. Maybe we can use this event and people's reaction to it to identify those who still subscribe to thinking so primitive and backward, the English language lacks an adjective suitably disgusting to describe it, and exclude them from our society, homes, and businesses completely. Maybe...

I won't be holding my breath though.

EARL COETZEE