Reaction to Orlando mass shooting from Houston LGBT community, Mayor Turner
HOUSTON (KTRK) -- At the Houston LGBT Caucus event today, Mayor Sylvester Turner and members of the LGBT community -- including former Mayor Annise Parker -- responded to the mass shooting in Orlando that claimed the lives of at least 50 people and wounded more than 53 others.
In his remarks, Turner said of the shooting, "Now is not the time for elected officials or business leaders or leaders of any group to be silent and to say nothing because the reality is when we are silent, we become complicit in what has taken place and we have to call it out for what it is, and what took place in Orlando today simply is wrong. And it's wrong whether it takes place in Orlando or whether it takes place in Houston or it takes place in Alabama -- it matters not. Every person in this country has value and we have to recognize that and we have to work towards that."
He added, "This is a point in time when all of us need to stand together and must say to the world that we will not tolerate these types of violence anywhere within this country. And enough is enough. Enough of the language. Enough of the toxicity. Enough of people talking about other groups as if they have no value and they're not worth anything. And enough of people being silent and letting folks do it and say what they want to say when they want to say it. Now we must draw the line."
Watch his full remarks in the video player above.
Also speaking at the same event, was former Houston Mayor Annise Parker, the first openly gay mayor of a major U.S. city. She said, "This is not the first time our community or many other communities have had to stand and acknowledge a terrible, terrible incident. ... The first LGBT event I attended was in 1975. ... It was a very different time when we started. ... Every time we had a public event, we had to fight down fear because every time we had a public event, there was a realistic possibility of some crazed individual coming forward trying to do damage to our community, but every time we faced down fear, we diminished the ability of any individual, any organization, to truly strike at the heart of our community."
She continued, "Every time we face down fear, every time we carry on, our lives the way we want to, with dignity and courage, simply going about our day-to-day lives, are joining together as a community, we push back fear, we push back hate, and we claim the future that we deserve. This may be the largest mass shooting in American history, but it falls into a stream of events -- a Columbine, an Aurora, a Sandy Hook, a Charleston -- and every time, as a community, as a city, as a state, as a nation, we have to recommit ourselves to making sure that fear never drives our decisions, that fear never stops us from doing what we must and need to do, and that fear never makes us strike out against any other community."
For more of Parker's comments, watch her full speech below.
