Sunday’s mass shooting at Pulse, a popular Orlando gay nightclub, is sending ripples throughout the whole of our country. Although it was nowhere near the scale of September 11, the fear and sorrow felt after the loss of so much life was definitely a familiar feeling. Being close to such an attack isn’t a foreign experience for me either. United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field about 30 minutes from my school. However, the sadness I feel in the pit of my stomach as I see the faces of innocent people flash across the news and social media sites is being accompanied by hope and pride in my fellow Central Floridians (and the rest of my country).

People here stood in lines for hours in the Florida summer heat to donate blood (including myself), others who couldn’t donate, brought water and snacks for the people in line waiting to donate, and many more people donated money to GoFundMe accounts aimed at helping victims’ families pay for medical bills and/or funeral costs. Orlando is feeling a huge outpouring of love from the entire nation. Nothing can heal such a wound, but the ability to come together as a community and a country amidst all the petty differences we argue about daily is inspiring.

However, I just engaged in a social media “conversation” that really pissed me off. For what seemed like the millionth time today, someone posted on social media that the gay pride flag shouldn’t be flown, only the American flag because it was a terrorist attack on America. The fact that these people were targeted for being gay, according to multiple people, is superseded by the fact that they were American. No hate crime here, only another terrorist attack by a Muslim (paraphrasing). Well I’m here to call bullshit.

This coward purposely targeted a club that was well known to be a gay spot. This means that, even though straight people do go to gay clubs, he went there with the intention to carry out his mass shooting in a place where he was most likely to kill as many gay people as possible. According to the FBI, the definition of a hate crime is a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.”

This crime was absolutely motivated, at least in part, because of a bias against their perceived sexual orientation. By screaming, “America” and demanding that only the American flag be flown because it was singularly (or most importantly) an attack on Americans is severely disrespecting the victims that lost their lives due to either their sexual orientation or willingness to associate with the LGBTQ community.

Now I am not saying this wasn’t a terrorist attack either. The attack has struck fear into all of our hearts, which, to me, is enough to qualify it as a terrorist attack. But just to make a point, the FBI classifies an attack as “domestic terrorism” if the attack has three characteristics:

Involve acts dangerous to human life that violate federal or state law; Appear intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; Occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S.

This attack definitely fits two out of three, but there were no political statements broadcast or left behind (at least yet to be released) that say his motivations were politically motivated. Again, I personally think it is an act of terrorism, but if you are in the business of saying either or, the mass shooting at Pulse clearly fits under the scope of hate crime more than domestic terrorism. However, why can’t it be both?

So now to my main point: Both flags can be flown to show support, but the gay pride flag needs to be represented. I understand the point everyone is making. Yes, they were Americans. But, here in the United States, most of us are Americans. If his primary purpose was to kill Americans, then he could have done that anywhere. Instead, he purposely targeted the LGBTQ community by carrying out his attacks at a location frequented by the gay community.

The 49 victims, whose bodies laid inside Pulse nightclub for a good 16 hours before they could be removed and identified, died because they decided to openly live in the LGBTQ community. Everyone has the right to love how they want, and these people were not out doing anything other than having a good time on a Saturday night. However, they will never get to laugh with friends again, hug and kiss their parents, or even fall in love. They didn’t die because they were Americans, they died because they were gay (or LGBTQ friendly).

But yes, they absolutely were our American brothers and sisters. Black, brown, white, red, purple, gay, straight, trans, bi, pan, disabled, young, old, et cetera, we are all Americans. So let’s show everyone that, although we squabble with each other, when it comes to being attacked, we will unite, we will fight back, and we will support our fallen families. Please, fly whatever flag you want to pledge your support (it’s the thought that counts), but do not for a second try to erase the hate crime portion of this act. By doing so, you spit on the memory of the victims’ lives. America’s pride is built on being the “land of the free,” and this means that we are a country of different cultures and lifestyles.

The whole point of being American is being allowed to be different and safe at the same time. And this means, when one piece of our collective whole is brutally attacked for being different, we don’t try to focus on how they are the same. We celebrate their right to have a unique culture, we accept their culture as being part of us, and we acknowledge that they were targeted for being different. Yes they were American, but they were murdered for being gay Americans. Our country was formed so people could live free from persecution and to attack someone’s freedom is about the most un-American act that can happen. So let’s act like it.

Rest in peace to the victims of this senseless tragedy…