The candles were lifted in unison, their small flames illuminating the tears, heartache and resolve that filled St. John's Episcopal Church in Charleston.
Charleston residents, members of West Virginia's LGBT community, leaders of the Islamic Association of Charleston and people simply looking for solace after an act of hate gathered for an interfaith service to reflect on the 49 people who were murdered early Sunday morning at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Charleston is more than 700 miles away from Pulse nightclub where Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen, used an AR-15 to indiscriminately kill and wound more than 100 people, but the fear, despair and hurt was just as real for many of the people who met Monday night at St. John's.
Todd Parks, a resident of Milton, traveled to the service simply to think and reflect with other people.
“It's a lot of anger,” said Parks, who is gay. “It feels like you have to do something, but you don't know what to do.”
Like many LGBT people, it doesn't take much for Parks to place himself in the shoes of one of the 49 people who were killed or to think about one of friends being shot dead at the club.
“I know what the inside of a club looks like,” he said. “I know the loud music. People feel safe there. It's a familiar place.”
Parks said Monday's gathering was evidence that the country has changed, even from a couple years ago. People are no longer afraid to say the word gay, he said, and the gay community no longer needs to deal with violence and persecution alone.
“If you are gay, you don't have to suffer this alone,” Parks said. “You don't have to experience it alone.”
Jason Najmulski, a resident of Charleston's West Side, took some time before he could explain his feelings on the Orlando shooting.
“This tragedy has felt very personal,” he said.
As a gay man who has witnessed the progression of civil rights in America over past decades, Najmulski emphasized that this was not the first time that gay, lesbian or other members of the LGBT community have been targeted, either individually or as larger groups.
One does not need to look far to find tragedies caused by hate towards the LGBT communities. In 1973, an arsonist killed 32 people in a gay bar in New Orleans. In 1997, a bomb was set off in a lesbian bar in Atlanta injuring five, and in 2014, tragedy was luckily averted after a man poured gasoline on the stairs of a gay night club in Seattle and set it alight.
But Najmulski said he was at the event Monday also to make sure that the grief being felt among Americans and the gay community can't be used to further discrimination against another minority class, namely Americans practicing the Islamic faith.
“I don't want people to be able to use this to increase an irrational fear of another group of people,” Najmulski said, referring to Muslims.
Mateen, the Orlando shooter, had allegedly pledged his allegiance to ISIS, the radical group that has taken over parts of Iraq and Syria in recent years.
The theme of unity and peace was threaded throughout the service. As she stood on stage, Ellen Allen, the executive director of Covenant House, addressed Sameh Asal, the imam of the Islamic Association of Charleston, and other West Virginia Muslims directly.
“This is not a time for politics,” she said “It's not a time for more hate.”
Imam Asal did the same, critiquing Mateen's and ISIS's interpretation of the Quran and the Islamic faith.
“On behalf of the Muslim community,” Asal said, “we condemn this cruel and violent attack against the LGBT community.”
Standing in Solidarity @ St John's in Charleston, WV pic.twitter.com/1PsEZb3vxl
— TomHindman (@TomHindman) June 13, 2016
He addressed the people standing and seated throughout the packed church as his brothers and sisters and railed against violent people “hijacking” religions and pretending to speak for God, Jesus or any other religious figure.
“It is not fair that whenever this happens they try to tie this to all Muslims,” he said.
Andrew Schneider, the executive director of Fariness West Virginia, said that the murder of the 49 people in Orlando is the same type of violent act that led to the deaths of people at a historic black church in South Carolina and a Planned Parenthood office in Colorado.
But he did not discount the fact that the LGBT community was targeted and he emphasized that the hate that led to people lying dead on the dance floor of Pulse was the same hate that is often expressed in more innocuous ways every day.
“Hate is also terrorism,” he said. “It doesn't just attack a person. It attacks the community they are part of.”
The Rev. Kay Albright closed the service by anecdotally connecting the Muslim and gay communities of Charleston and the United States.
Gay and lesbian couples she said perform small acts of courage by holding hands or simply kissing in public. In the same way, Muslim women act bravely by proudly wearing hijabs.
“There is too much use of religion to justify the hurting of others,” she said.
“Hate and intolerance,” she added, “has no place here in Charleston.”
Reach Andrew Brown at andrew.brown@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4814 or @andy_ed_brown on Twitter.