Sam Harris describes this situation perfectly. I used to attend a humanist group who adored Sam Harris and his book The Moral Landscape. Sometime within the last few years though, this group has taken the way of Humanism+, which is just another branch of Social Justice that preaches the opposite of humanism (identity politics.) It is a real joke to be honest. 

So what's the solution. "Fight" what? An idea? How do we do that? By huffing and puffing our chests and going to war? Are you going to go fight on the front lines? 

The Middle East was carpet bombed again and again in the years after 9/11. Yet there seems to be more extremism now, not less, maybe dropping bombs on people doesn't work, all it does is create more people that hate the West it seems. 

This one guy shot up a club, and I'm not even entirely sure his motivations were purely religious, sounds like he had some issues with his own sexuality. 

After this one shooting several hundred Muslims gathered in Orlando as part of a vigil. Do we really want to alienate and create hatred from those people? I'd rather work with the majority of them and invite people to choose a more peaceful path. 

Certainly not, and you won't find Sam Harris saying that either. The solution is to not let homophobia in the Islamic community get a free pass just because Muslims are a minority. To not accept regressive views, even if the people are non-violent. Basically treat Muslims how we treat Christians, with disdain - when they say hateful things, and with praise when they show they care about others. 

But also, to help westernize and liberalize Islam throughout the world via ideas.

 You don't think the bolded has anything to do with the religious views of his family and himself? 

How do you do that though? Because it very easily becomes Islamophobia and is seized upon by people of that ilk as an excuse, which then pisses off Muslims, which leads to them feeling more alienated/isolated, and then guess what happens. 

To me this is a zero sum game, yes we need to push for more liberalism, but we cannot become assholes in the process about it either. That is just to lead to the cycle above. 

Even now Christiainity still has massive issues with homosexuality, it's only really in the last 20-25 years that people in Christainity who were anti-gay have been really shamed for their views and that type of POV is no longer considered mainstream. Expecting this to happen overnight with Islam would be nice, but ultimately probably not realistic. 

In American society there is a focus on assimilation (unlike in Europe/Canada/Australia where the focus is multiculturalism.) So it definitely can hurt your pocket-book and your happiness if you don't assimilate and are ostracized socially. Being afraid of muslims with extremist views or that you will further alienate them is not a solution, and has done us no good. If they get pissed off, it is their problem, just as if the Westboro Baptist Church is pissed off by homosexuality it is theirs. I am not going to be nice to the people who think I should be imprisoned for the way I was born, sorry. They need to change their views before I'll interact with them in a cordial manner. That doesn't mean I won't confront them about their piss-poor ideas either though. They need to be confronted and not ignored. 

Why not? It has worked for mainstream Christians. Christians have been shamed enough to concede some of their views are hateful, and now the LGBT leaders have to turn over rocks to find homophobia from the Christian community. Shame is a strong motivator. 

I don't expect it to happen overnight, but it isn't going to happen if we keep ignoring the undercurrent homophobia and sexism among muslims. When things like below happen, we need to bring it into the spotlight and shame them for it. That doesn't mean we blast the whole community, as there are many muslims who are already secular and liberalized, but blast those who say things like this, and don't pretend it is some marginal reality exclusive to ISIS members. 

Yes absolutely that imam should be called out for that. 

But lets not forget that kinda lost in this story was that a white guy was on his way to LA Pride parade the same day with guns and make shift bombs planning to kill people there. 

The only difference? He happened to get caught on his way there. The eerie thing is he had the exact same profession even as the Orlando shooter (security guard). 

So you know we can talk about how much progress has been made and that this is specifically a Muslim problem now, but the very same day this shooting hapepned you had a guy who wasn't Muslim planning to do the exact same thing. That puts things in some perspective. 

And if he killed all those people, and there is reason to believe it is because of religious views, then I can guarantee you it would be mentioned by somebody on the left. 

Just as that lunatic who killed people at the planned parenthood last year. 

Look how thinkprogress framed that story. I wonder how they framed this story? 

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/12/01/3727084/yes-the-planned-parenthood-shooter-was-a-christian-terrorist/

But while some famous conservatives such Mike Huckabee were eventually willing to call the massacre a case of “domestic terrorism,” many on social media demanded that right-wing politicians refer to Dear as a “Christian terrorist.” 

http://nationalreport.net/obama-refers-colorado-shooter-christian-terrorist-press-briefing/

"A gun in the hands of just one Christian terrorist has resulted in the loss of life of a police veteran, father, and volunteer pastor; two civilians, injuries to five of Colorado’s brave law enforcement officers, and four innocent civilians.”

Now the president is having trouble calling this case "islamic terrorism" or Omar a "muslim terrorist." Why is that? Because it's not politcally correct to do so. I also find it funny that many of my friends on the left are itching to paint Omar as "a self-hating gay man who took his rage out on the club because he probably was rejected." Talk about victim blaming. I've seen other gay people say this too. It is absolutely disgusting, to be honest. A friend of mine said, "we need to stop rejecting people, look what just happened." Instead of calling a spade a spade, because that would be politically incorrect, people need to come up with conspiracy theories and blame the victims. 

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-weho-shootback-rainbow-20160616-snap-story.html

“I hope it’s just people venting that they could do this, and I’m hoping their calmness will take over. It’s our job to keep you safe.” 

Nope, it is finally time for people to realize that the government has only corollary interests in keeping us safe. #ShootBack is a good message. I know it is one that isn't received well in California, but hopefully people elsewhere heed it. 

Nobody is telling them to be perfect. But expecting them to evolve out of the god damn stone age is reasonable.

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