Homosexual panic and the Pulse atrocity

by John MacBeath Watkins

On Sunday, June 12, at about 2 a.m., Omar Mateen entered a crowded gay nightclub and opened fire, killing 49 people and injuring 53 before being fatally shot by police. He claimed to be an Islamic terrorist, but his father said the incident that set him off was seeing two men kissing.

The L.A. Times went with a headline Monday that noted the shooter had claimed allegiance to Hezbollah, a Shiite terror organization. CNN and some other outlets went with headlines saying he had claimed allegiance to Islamic State, a Sunni terror organization which is currently fighting Hezbollah in Syria.

As it happens, both were right, at different times Mateen had claimed allegiance to both organizations. The one he chose the night of his attack was Islamic State. His claims to be aligned with terror organizations was incoherent, probably a cover for what was really going on.

His claims fit nicely with standard narratives about how Islamic terrorists are a threat to America, and the conservative political correctness that insists on the term "Islamic terrorist" to describe them, even when much more precise terms are available.

But his father said the incident had nothing to do with religion. From the Tampa Bay Times:

Mateen's father, Seddique Mir Mateen, told NBC News he did not believe the killings had to do with religion and said his son was angered recently when he saw two gay men kissing in Miami. 

"They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, 'Look at that. In front of my son they are doing that,' " the father said. "And then we were in the men's bathroom and men were kissing each other."

And a man who claims allegiance to organizations that are sworn enemies and currently actively shooting at each other doesn't know much about those organizations.

There is a term of art in psychology and law called a homosexual panic, which describes the anxiety and conflicted feelings of a person who is faced with his (this is usually a male phenomenon) repressed homosexual desires. It has been used as a legal defense in assault and murder cases, with lawyers claiming that a defendant panicked when they received a homosexual advance and were temporarily insane.

That sounds a bit like claiming not to be culpable for a crime because one is bigot, at least to the modern ear. Homosexual panic has fallen out of favor as a psychological diagnosis, as well as a legal defense. But I think it describes something that happens in people who are culturally conditioned to hate homosexuality and repress it in themselves.

Even those of us who grew up in a society where most homosexuals were closeted didn't have the kind of visceral reaction Mateen did  As I recall, the first time I saw two men kissing (not just Frenchmen greeting each other, but an obvious couple,) I found it unusual, but didn't see it as my problem. Living in a major city, I no longer consider it unusual.

And talking to other men, some felt a little uncomfortable the first time they saw men kissing, but anger was not the usual response.

Studies have shown that homophobes often have unresolved homosexual feelings. This is outlined in a study that was conducted by a team from the University of Rochester, the University of Essex, England, and the University of California in Santa Barbara. The research was published the April, 2012 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

From Science Daily:

"Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves," explains Netta Weinstein, a lecturer at the University of Essex and the study's lead author. 

"In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward," adds co-author Richard Ryan, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester who helped direct the research.

What I'm talking about here is not a sudden onset of temporary madness, but a slow-burning lump of sulfur in the soul, a sense of panic that won't let go for years and years. Mateen must have known he would die when he went on his rampage. He was killing himself, and killing others who personified the part of himself he wanted dead.

This is the price of a culture that does not allow people to be themselves. We've had a long series of anti-gay lawmakers eventually turn out to be gay. Such men must have a grinding sense of panic for most of their adult lives, slowly wearing away at their souls while they try to demonstrate their loyalty to traditional sex roles by hounding people who express the sexuality they don't have the courage to reveal.

Moral cowardice and cruelty are close companions in this hellish world of repressed desire and displaced self-hatred. Mateen tried to portray himself as an Islamic martyr be claiming allegiance to Islamic State during his murderous night at the Pulse, but his father is probably right. This wasn't about religion.

Edited to add:

I thought I was kind of out on a limb with this one, but Gawker published something that seems to confirm it. Mateen was a regular at Pulse, and engaged in the un-Islamic practice of getting sloppy drunk on a regular basis.

http://gawker.com/orlando-shooter-was-reportedly-a-regular-at-pulse-and-h-1781920316

He also used a gay messaging ap, according to Gawker.