Men kiss and tweet in response to Orlando massacre

The father of gunman Omar Mateen, who opened fire on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Sunday leaving at least 49 dead and 53 injured, told NBC News that his son became angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami several months before.

“We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid, and he got very angry,” Seddique Mateen said.

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Some on Twitter fought right back with the hashtag #TwoMenKissing, which is being used to symbolize strength and hope in the LGBTQ community.

“If #TwoMenKissing is now an act of defiance, activism has never been so pleasant,” tweeted @WoutervD.

Walbert Castillo is a recent University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign graduate and a Paste BN College intern.

This story originally appeared on the Paste BN College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.