IT’S said that people pay closest attention to those parts of their holy books that happen to confirm their existing prejudices. The parts that they read most assiduously are those parts that allow them to say that their god instructs them to hate people whom they already hate, while ignoring the parts that say that their god wants them to love, to demonstrate compassion, to understand, to accept.

That’s particularly the case with those like the perpetrator of the Orlando atrocity who carried out the most lethal homophobic hate-crime since the Nazi persecution during WW2.

Omar Mateen might have chosen to seek justification for his hatred in his particular holy book, but that’s not where he learned how to hate gay people. He just paid most attention to those parts of it that happened to confirm prejudices that he already had. His holy book is where he happened to find a spurious cover for his own shortcomings, his own inadequacies, his own fear and his own insecurity in his masculinity.

He could just as easily have found it in the Bible, or in any other sacred text, or in just about any political ideology.

David Copeland, the neo-Nazi nail bomber who blew up a gay bar in London’s Soho in 1999, killing three and maiming dozens more, sought justification for his hatred of gay people in a perverse far-right ideology. He hated Muslims as much as he hated LGBT people, but his hatred of gay people probably stemmed from similar motivations to those of Omar Mateen, a deep-rooted insecurity in his own masculinity which he tried to compensate for by demonising other groups.

According to some reports Copeland was influenced in his violent beliefs by a pamphlet written by a certain David Myatt, another white supremacist and homophobe. Myatt later converted to radical Islamic extremism, defended the killing of civilians and praised Osama Bin Laden. He has now reportedly renounced violence and extremism.

The victims of Omar Mateen probably included heterosexual people as well as LGBT people. Amongst the victims of David Copeland was a straight pregnant woman out celebrating with her husband and their gay friends. Mateen and Copeland attacked tolerance and inclusion as much as they attacked a sexual minority.

They attacked the acceptance of LGBT people by their straight families and friends.

Nevertheless the motive for the attack was the hatred of LGBT people. It was shameful that sections of the media attempted to overlook this aspect of the crime. The Daily Mail initially ignored the attack entirely on its front page, to make room for its special offer of pearl earrings just like the Queen’s instead. Left-wing commentator Owen Jones stormed out of a press review on Sky News to applause in this household as the presenter attempted to downplay Mateen’s motivation in hateful homophobia and talk about Islamic extremism instead. As Jones pointed out, if Mateen had chosen to attack a synagogue instead, no one would have denied or downplayed the fact that the atrocity was anti-Semitic.

MATEEN was born and brought up in the USA, a country where the Christian right has a long history of stoking the fires of homophobia to score political points. Even while those wounded in the Orlando attack were receiving first aid in Florida hospitals, Dan Patrick, the Republican Lieutenant Governor of Texas tweeted that the LGBT victims had reaped what they had sown as a punishment for mocking God. Just as we cannot separate the crime from the ease with with anyone with a grudge can access firearms in the USA, we cannot separate it from the climate of hatred fostered by right-wing American politicians of a decidedly non-Islamic bent.

Perhaps the day will come when people will realise that if they believe that their god teaches them to hate gay people, to kill peaceful shopkeepers because of supposed heresy, to exclude and diminish women, that they’re not worshipping a god at all. They’re worshipping the demons within themselves.

For generations LGBT people have faced violence, exclusion, intolerance. We were afraid, and often still are afraid, to walk down the street holding the hand of our love one, afraid to casually mention in conversation that we have a significant other of the same gender as ourselves. But gradually, we’ve come out into the open, we’ve learned to live and love as equals of heterosexual people, and by and large we have found the acceptance of heterosexual people.

Scotland has done particularly well in this regard. I’d be the last person to deny there are still challenges, that I’d still be wary about walking down Shettleston road with hand in hand with my significant other. Young LGBT people in Scotland still face exclusion, intolerance, and a lack of acceptance. But we have travelled across the galaxy compared to when I was a young gay man in a working-class community in the east end of Glasgow in the late 1970s, facing universal condemnation, afraid that if anyone discovered my secret I’d be cast out, beaten up and abused, all the while listening to a daily litany of homophobic hate speech that passed for banter. It was just a joke, don’t take it seriously. Now LGBT Scots find ourselves in the incredible situation where abusing us because of our sexual orientation or gender identity counts as a hate crime, but instead the UK media abuses us all, gay or straight, because we’re Scottish. Anti-Scottish racism, it’s the new homophobic banter.

In the days since the Orlando attack there have been spontaneous demonstrations of solidarity and support in London’s Soho and in Glasgow’s George Square. Across the world people gay and straight said no to violence, no to intolerance, no to fear. Mateen will not drive us back into the closet any more than Copeland did. We are the ones who walk in love, the ones who walk in the light. We are the ones who practise what a real god preaches – love, peace, compassion and mercy. That’s why we are winning, that’s why we are going to win.

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh: Barbaric act in Orlando must be met with unity