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Various reports raised questions about the killer's sexuality. Twice married to women, he reportedly had frequented the club and sought out gay men on social networks in the weeks before the massacre.

Without speculating about Mateen's state of mind, Abdullah acknowledged that the unfolding details sounded familiar. "Some young Muslim men are gender-confused," as well as confused about their sexuality, in today's cultural atmosphere, he said.

"I've known some who get married despite their confusion and they stick with it," he said. Others are so unhappy that they later get divorced and that new honesty with themselves "changes their lives for the better."

It is easy for non-Muslims to criticize responsible Muslim voices for failing to denounce Islamic terrorism. Yet, it is difficult to find those voices quoted in mainstream media when they do speak out.

This time, amid the cultural cross-currents of gay politics and Islamic terrorism, Abdullah feels encouraged by a new sense of anti-terrorist solidarity between the Muslim and LGBT communities.

For example, Abdullah noted, he was invited for the first time by a major Islamic organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), to represent gay Muslims at an interfaith memorial event.

CAIR's Florida chapter urged local Muslims to donate blood for the wounded. The Muslim American Women's Policy Forum (MAWPF) hosted a vigil in Washington, D.C., on Monday to mourn those killed and wounded in Orlando.

A dozen Islamic groups have raised more than $70,000 on the LaunchGood crowdfunding website for victims' families.

Yet change must also come within the Muslim community, Abdullah points out. Condemnations of Islamophobia, he said, must be accompanied by condemnations of gender inequality and homophobia within Muslim communities, too. He's right. Members of the LGBT community have enough handicaps.

In return, all communities need to encourage the cooperation that helps to expose possible radical activities to law enforcement agencies. "It has been Muslims who have turned in radical Muslims," Abdullah pointed out. That's what happens when you build bridges to ethnic communities, not walls.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)

(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.