"Orlando was both a terrorist attack and a homophobic attack on LGBT people. It was both the worst mass shooting in US history, and the worst targeted mass killing of LGBT people in the western world since the Holocaust. It is possible for an atrocity to be more than one thing at the same time." -- Owen Jones, The Guardian, 6/13/16

As the details of the recent horrific attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando began to come in -- an attack which ultimately left 49 people dead and injured many more -- I found myself debating definitions, among other things.

"This was an attack on humanity, plain and simple," insisted my friend.

"No," I replied, "this was an attack on a gay bar."

Because it was. If preliminary reports of an attack on a synagogue (or historic black church) were flooding the news, few would, I think, hesitate to offer up antisemitism (or out-and-out racism) as a possible -- even probable -- angle. So why hesitate with Orlando to entertain the idea that homophobic hate might have been involved?

The conversation continued, in bursts, as more information came in:

"I'm not saying it wasn't homophobic. But they're all homophobic, these nutters! Of course a gay bar was targeted."

He was referring, with 'these nutters', to ISIS of course. After all, we had just learned that the shooter had 'pledged allegiance' to the self-styled 'Islamic State' (via a 911 call) duringthe massacre. Continuing, he added:

"Look, they [ISIS] even claimed responsibility. They don't just do that for any old loner! This was a terrorist attack on Western freedoms. Gay bar or not."

I didn't get it. I didn't understand why, at the very least, the attack on Orlando couldn't be both an act of terrorism and a homophobic attack. Sure, Omar Mateen -- as we now knew the shooter's name -- had claimed something of a political and ideological affiliation with, well, the contemporary terrorist group, and that was more than enough for me to call it terrorism. (Not to say ISIS is my watermark. I think Dylann Roof -- with his white-supremacist manifesto, with his desire to 'ignite a civil war' -- was also very much a terrorist, for example. After all, the horrific attack he committed also had political, ideological motivations.) But Mateen had clearly targeted a gay bar! What was the issue with calling this a specificallyhomophobic terrorist attack? Why should it matter whether the homophobia was Mateen's (and Mateen's alone) or some expression of ISIS's, but a portion of the contempt they reserve for various groups (LGBT individuals, women, neighbouring ethnic and religious minorities, to name but a few)? Homophobia would still comprise a sizeable, un-ignorable portion of 'the whole story' in Orlando. It was my turn now:

"Alright. First off, ISIS claiming responsibility means nothing. It's well within their interests to do that whether or not the attack was actually organised by them. [As I write this the CIA is yet to find any 'formal' link between Mateen and ISIS.] And secondly, this was a terrorist attack on a gay bar, on gay people. You can't just ignore that detail. That's all I'm saying."

"So you don't think it was an attack on, just, people?"

"No. It wasn't indiscriminate -- Mateen didn't just fire into some random crowd in a busy section of the city. It was targeted at a specific group, at a specific minority. That's all I'm saying."

A few minutes later, and he was on the defensive:

"So... because I'm not gay, I can't possibly understand? I can't feel just as attacked? That my society has been attacked?"

"Sure. But you have to also understand that, frankly, gay and transgender men and women will be feeling quite a bit more targeted, on average, than others... and that they'll probably be feeling this one for longer, too. It's basic psychology. It's a matter of connectedness. 'Close-to-home-ness.'"

"What do you mean?"

"It's simple. Friends and family of the victims will probably be feeling the most terrible right now, and will undoubtedly grieve the longest -- probably for the rest of their lives. Will you grant me that point?"

"Uhhh... sure."

"Right... so more than the general public?"

"Sure."

"And their clear-cut, obvious link to the victims is what makes the difference, right?"

"I get what you're saying, but -"

"Alright, so: wouldn't identifying as a member of the specific group targeted provide such a link? Forget how big or small... wouldn't this give someone at least more of a 'link' than just anyone, not a family member or close friend, would have?"

"Sure."

"Then, again, that's all I'm saying." I pause. "Not only was this a 'homophobic attack' as a matter of pedantry, but the homophobic hatred of the attack must be placed centre-stage -- if only as a sign of respect to the understandably disproportionately shaken LGBT community."

***

Some time after the conversation, it emerged that Omar Mateen was a regular at the club he attacked, as well as a user of the gay dating app 'Jack'd'. What's more, as reported by the New York Times, his father "told NBC News that [Omar] had come across two men kissing in Miami recently and was infuriated that his 3-year-old son had seen it, too."

So homophobia -- and a homophobia likely fuelled by the shooter's own self-loathing, a product of the friction between his sexuality and his deeply held beliefs -- is as large a part of the picture as anything, if not possibly the entire picture.

It cannot be ignored. The massacre in Orlando was a terrorist attack, sure. But it was also the worst mass killing of LGBT people since the holocaust... and for a reason.