I confess I'm one of the people who isn't very fond of the phenomenon of offering prayers as a contribution to a rough situation - so, Sunshine, I don't feel that anything is lost by your lack of prayer
Especially when the rough situation is rooted in systemic wrongs, like this hate crime expressing and reflecting bigotry and prejudice, it often feels very much like the person offering prayers is opting out of being any part of acknowledging or addressing those systemic wrongs. Especially when it's about a marginalised community, like queer folk are. It can feel like people are making the right noises until it goes away and they can ignore our oppression again. It can feel like that, even when the person offering prayers truly didn't mean it that way. Maybe it's extra-loaded for queer folk, too, as "pray for us" has too often been a tool of bigotry, a signal that our existence is wrong and that they'd have us change.
(Folk who have prayer as a way of life, who use prayer for personal comfort, who use prayer for guidance to action: I see you. Hopefully it's clear that's not about you - it's about the phenomenon of prayer-as-an-answer, for want of better phrasing.)
I DO think that Sunshine raises something really important, and a big need, with talking about feeling so helpless. That's something I feel like I see a lot when something terrible happens in one of our broader communities, when it isn't really connected to us personally. We can care very much indeed, and deeply want to do something,
need to do something, even, but feel very lost about what, and that helpless feeling can make us feel worse. So, maybe it helps to talk a bit about what we, as very ordinary people, Can do, into the future? If people want that, I'm sure we can do that.
My own feelings about this are still finding themselves. What I'm beginning to get is that I'm ANGRY. Angry about the act, the destruction and pain caused just by bigotry and hatred. Angry at the waste - the future lives lost, and the impact on the people still here, for nothing. Angry at the bigotry and hatred directed at us and about us. Angry at the LGBTQ erasure that's happening in some places - obscuring that this was at a gay club. Angry that some people are using it to aim bigotry and hatred at others, including some of our own - homophobic violence being used as an islamophobic or xenophobic weapon, HELL NO. Angry that at a time where I would find care and a rejection of violence and harm most healing, some people are using the original hurt to stoke more violence and put up more divisions. Angry that someone's needless actions made me -and so many others - feel sad and world-shaken.