Providence memorial service honors Orlando victims

A memorial service was held last night at Roger Williams National Memorial in Providence to remember the victims of the gay nightclub shooting in Orlando. Speakers included leaders from the LGBTQ, Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities.   Around this time last year, many of the same community members gathered at the same park to celebrate the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality. One of the speakers at the event was the Minister Gwendolyn Howard of the First Unitarian Church of Providence. She was preparing for her Sunday morning service when she heard about the shooting. “Sunday morning I got up early. I planned to put the finishing touches on that morning’s worship service.  And then I read the news. At first I was numb.Then I had a terrible feeling. Something I’d felt before, that awful knot in my stomach. The feeling I’d had back when I was in high school and a fellow classmate started hitting me while shouting ‘damned queer.’ The feeling I’d had when my spouse and I go out together and we still think about: is holding hands going to be risky?” Howard and several other speakers called on Rhode Islanders to unite in the face of the tragedy in Orlando.   “In the name of the fallen we must say no more to violence, no more to bigotry. No to homophobia and transphobia. No to racism, misogyny, ableism, Islamophobia. We honor those who have been lost when we are stronger than hate,” Howard said.  Several politicians, including Governor Gina Raimondo and Mayor Jorge Elorza, also spoke at the event. State Senators Josh Miller and Donna Nesselbush even walked out of their Senate session to attend the memorial, which was organized by the Religious Coalition for a Violence-Free Rhode Island.  The senators asked Rhode Islanders to support them in enacting gun control legislation. Gun legislation is not on the calendar for this year’s congressional session, which ends this week. Hundreds of people gathered at the park to honor the 49 killed and 53 injured in Orlando. Many of the people killed were Latinx young people who identified as LGBTQ.