Mayor Fred Eisenberger called the Orlando shootings "a hate crime in every sense of the word". "I'm just devastated … our religion teaches compassion, understanding and acceptance." The Orlando shooter, also a Muslim, should have been at the mosque or praying if he were a true Muslim she said. "It's just so upsetting that this would go on in the time of fasting," she said in reference to the Muslim holy time of Ramadan. Yasmeen Mirza, a Muslim woman who works with and has many friends in the LGBTQ community, attended the event in solidarity with them, she said, adding she cried at news of the Orlando shootings. "It was that same kick in the gut," she said. In the crowd, Mary Louise Pigott said when she heard about the Orlando shootings, she experienced the same feeling as when the Montreal massacre occurred - in which 14 university women were gunned down.
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He spoke of the strides made by the gay community but said transphobia is now the new frontier to confront to ensure transgender people are treated as full human beings. I think it was a shock to people as well as an awakening that homophobia is still with us." "It's up to each of us to build the solidarity that it's going to take to resist the hate and oppression seeping into our community…," he said.Īidan Johnson, Hamilton's first openly gay city councillor, believed the large crowd "has everything to do with Orlando. But he pointed out Hamilton has the second highest hate crime rate in the province. Picken, the MC, called the Florida nightclub shooting horrific.
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It also recognized the local transgender community by raising the striped pink, blue and white transgender flag for the first time alongside the usual rainbow flag representing all of the LGBTQ community.
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It started this year with a minute of silence for the 49 victims slain at a gay nightclub in Orlando Saturday night and the many left in critical condition. The city hall event to kick off gay Pride Week attracted about 400 people who made up the biggest crowd yet to attend the annual event. Marlon Picken's words resonated Monday with the crowd at the Pride flag raising ceremony where they paid tribute to Orlando's victims and also pushed locally for more transgender rights and tougher hate crime laws. "You mourn for the dead - and then you fight like hell for the living."