Human compassion should be universal and applicable to all victims of the Orlando shooting regardless of who they were, said the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, adding that homophobic comments are “beyond good and evil.”
The homophobic reactions justifying the actions of the shooter by the victims’ sexual orientation are “simply disgusting,” Russian Foreign Ministry’s spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote in an emotional Facebook post. “Such elaborations are beyond good and evil.”
She likened such comments to justifying “shooting children with developmental problems” by saying as an excuse that “they are parasites.” The Orlando shooting is being mourned worldwide, but some in the US and beyond have praised the attack.
“It’s time to decide – either you sympathize with it as a human being, or you sympathize because of social and political beliefs,” Zakharova said.
“Any issue involving someone’s inclinations cannot be challenged with weapons,” she wrote, before adding: “It’s impossible to defend any values, even traditional and formal ones, if you don’t have compassion.”
In one of the examples illustrating hateful comments in regard to the tragedy, earlier on Sunday, Yeni Akit, a Turkish right-wing newspaper, which is an avid supporter of the ruling party and reportedly has close ties to President Recep Tayip Erdogan, published a homophobic headline: “Death toll rises to 50 in bar where perverted homosexuals go!”
The newspaper has been known to use hate speech referring to minorities in Turkey including Jews, Armenians and Christians, and in particular the LGBT community, according to Turkish think-tank the Hrant Dink Foundation as cited by the Daily Mail.
The mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49, is the deadliest incident of gun violence ever seen in the US, and the third-deadliest case of lone-wolf mass murder in history. Omar Mateen, 29, a Florida-born US citizen brought up by a family of first-generation Afghan immigrants, was identified as the killer by the police and eliminated by a SWAT team during the subsequent hostage rescue operation.