Two men wounded in the Pulse nightclub massacre are organizing a rally in Orlando next month with the conservative Florida Family Policy Council to promote Christians who have been “delivered from LGBTQ lifestyles.”
Angel Colon, 29, and Luis Javier Ruiz, 36, said they’re bringing a Freedom March to Lake Eola on Sept. 14 to share their faith and perspective as “overcomers” of their homosexuality through Christianity.
The men did not respond to requests for comment, but some worry their message will further traumatize survivors of the June 12, 2016, attack that left 49 dead and 68 seriously wounded.
“The fact that they’re survivors means I have nothing but love for them and compassion for their personal journey,” said Brandon Wolf, a fellow survivor who has since devoted himself to working against gun violence and for the LGBTQ civil rights group Equality Florida. “But what I hope doesn’t happen is that they send a message that Pulse was some sort of divine retribution. For people who are already traumatized to hear in any way that this was some divine act to help move people out of their sexual orientation or gender identity is really dangerous and has the ability to further damage a lot of people.”
Colon, a former dancer who was shot six times and was dragged to safety by a police officer, told NBC News the goal is not to change the sexual orientation or gender identity of those who don’t want to be changed.
“We’re trying to share our stories through ministry and share the testimonies of people who’ve come out of the homosexual lifestyle,” he told the network.
Luis Javier Ruiz, 36, an Army veteran trampled at Pulse after he fell trying to escape, said in a Facebook post that before the attack he had “struggles of perversion, heavy drinking to drown out everything and having promiscuous sex.”
“God showed his grace,” he said in a testimonial posted on YouTube, by sparing his life while so many of his friends died that night.
“What made me leave the lifestyle, I guess the final step, was when I found out I was HIV positive,” he said in the testimonial. “So God had to go really deep — deep — to catch me.”
The men formed their own nonprofit organization, Fearless Identity, incorporated last October. It lists its purpose as “educating and teaching.”
Freedom March, which describes itself as a religious organization, has hosted previous rallies in Washington, D.C.; St. Paul, Minn.; and Los Angeles.
John Stemberger, president of the Florida Family Policy Council — which opposes gay marriage and abortion rights — said he learned about the Freedom March held in Washington last year and reached out to Colon and Ruiz to help promote an event in Orlando.
“Our role and goal is simply to help and support [them],” he said. “The Fearless Identity organization has been going to major cities around the country … and Florida is just one of the next [places] in line, and Orlando is a great place for this positive, motivating event. The event has nothing to do with Pulse nightclub also being located in Orlando.”
But it’s exactly that connection that worries the Rev. Terri Steed Pierce, senior pastor of Joy Metropolitan Community Church, which welcomes LGBTQ worshipers.
“We’re a mile and a half from Pulse,” she said. “This is our neighborhood. And the fact that they’re coming here to do it, coming to the place where it happened, it just feels so harmful. I feel bad for every survivor, every family member of the victims, every first responder. It just brings up the torture and the trauma.”
Already, she said, many of those in her congregation “have been through that torture of trying to pray away the gay,” hoping to change their sexual orientation in order to feel accepted by their families and houses of worship.
“It’s who we are,” she said. “And for this community to think that somehow this was God’s plan just goes against everything I know about God. It makes Pulse even sadder.”
