Orlando is a wake-up call that we must be ‘One America’

During times of national crisis, each individual is called upon to put country above self-interest. This is a recurring theme of our history and that of our allies. Yet it is frustrating to me as a conservative gay American who spent years analyzing and advising the Congress on foreign policy that we are, collectively, unable to do this. The opinions of those on the left who are incapable of recognizing the great urgency of this moment unwittingly lend support to policies that make us weaker and expose our nation to greater peril.

{mosads}Why include my “gay” demographic above? Because our current public media dialogue has cast a very narrow light — understandably so — on the victims of the tragedy in Orlando, Florida, who perished in a gay bar. While in no way seeking to distract from the heartbreaking tragedy that claimed the lives of so many innocent gays and their friends, I would like to suggest that this incident has more far-reaching consequences that touch all Americans. To continue down this road poses an existential threat to the United States.

Orlando was a call to action that we have reached a point in U.S. history where we must recognize that the safety of our nation must take precedence over every interest group concern. Americans must return to the unity we felt the day after 9/11 when there were no hyphenated white-Americans, black-Americans, Hispanic-Americans or gay-Americans.

Our leading Democrats are reluctant to say that we are at war with radical Islam. They have thrown every smokescreen to deflect and distract — videos, guns, etc. — and have blamed every invented enemy: former President George W. Bush, Christians and the state of Israel. They have blamed every source in fact except the one perpetrating the crime: violent radical Islamists.

Even in Obama’s speech to the nation earlier this week, he chastised conservatives for challenging him to label the current threat as “radical Islam.” It is not only the label we seek, but the depth of understanding necessary to wage a full-scale war against those who seek our destruction. Properly labeling the current conflict is only a start, a first and necessary step to waging a war against the ideology that underpins it and a necessary action to educate the country and the world that we put our country’s safety above the interests of individual groups, gay or otherwise.

In the run-up to World War II, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s “peace” was peace at any price. And it was ultimately rejected by the British people. The Obama/ Clinton “peace” of “manageable conflict” for fear of attacking the underlying philosophy is even worse because it recognizes the willingness to appease the enemy by apologizing, blaming others and refusing to confront our enemies’ threatening ideology: radical Islam.

This paltry management of conflict makes us less prepared, weaker and more vulnerable. When the ever-more-frequent terrorism incident occurs and they cannot blame “workplace violence” or “white Christian evangelicals,” they parry to guns, videos or even to the presumptive Republican nominee, Donald Trump, the only one on the political stage who even gives name to our greatest threat and understands the necessity of attending to it.

The sacrifice that gay Americans are called to make is little different from the sacrifice that other Americans groups must make in our times. The people of Orlando aptly embraced the mantra “One Orlando” as a response to Sunday’s horrific event. Now all Americans should embrace “One America” in a united front against the deadly foes that plague us.

This piece was corrected on Monday, June 20, 2016 at 12:37 a.m.

Cohen, head of the New York office of Off the Record Strategies and New York director of the Anglosphere Society, spent years advising the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on Western European affairs. He was the founding executive director of the House United Kingdom Caucus.