Sanders: Islam Not To Blame For Orlando Tragedy

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont urged people not to blame Islam for motivating the Orlando shooting, which killed 49 people at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12.

“The Muslim people did not commit this act. A man named Omar Mateen did,” Sanders said, referring to the 30-year-old man who was killed during a stand-off with police. “To blame an entire religion for the acts of a single individual is nothing less than bigotry, and that is not what this country is supposed to be about,” reports The Hill.

Mateen, who was reportedly gay but not out, according to former classmates, was a frequent visitor at Pulse, the gay club he attacked on June 12 when the club was celebrating Latin Night, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

“Was he motivated by homophobia and hatred of the gay community? Was he motivated by some kind of hatred of Latinos? Was he suicidal and wanted to end his life by taking others with him? We may never know the answer to those questions,” Sanders said.

Mateen, born in New York and raised in Florida, was not known to be very religious. But he does appear to have been influenced by recent terrorist attacks, including the 2013 Boston bombing, as well as another Florida man he knew personally who became a suicide bomber in Syria, according to NBC News.

Police also found that he downloaded terrorist material, including sermons from Anwar al-Awlaki, an Al Quaeda propagandist and American citizen who, along with his 16-year-old son, was killed by U.S. drones in 2011 in Yemen.

Although Sanders pleaded for Americans not to blame Muslims, he said that the U.S. must act to stop ISIS, the Islamic terrorist group currently the focus of anti-terrorism efforts abroad.

“This is a barbaric organization that has caused massive suffering,” Sanders said. “Hundreds of thousands of people in the Middle East. And let us not forget that most of the people who are suffering and dying as the result of ISIS are Muslims. And by the way, it is Muslim troops on the ground today who are taking the fight to ISIS as we speak and pushing them back and defeating them in Iraq and Syria. Muslim troops.” 

Sources: The Hill, Orlando Sentinel, NBC News / Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr