This last Saturday left a dark mark on America. The tragic shooting in Orlando, Florida at the gay club, Pulse, has left at least 50 people dead at this time and at least 53 people hospitalized with injuries from this mass shooting.

The identity of the shooter is Omar Mateen, 29. Mateen was later shot by the SWAT team that entered the club in hopes of rescuing those held hostage within the club. The first hand accounts of people who were subjected to this awful scenario are filled with blood and terror.

Mateen was armed with an assault rifle, a handgun, and another "suspicious violent object." The death toll is staggeringly high, the highest in US history, and the aftermath of this mass shooting is, and will continue to, unfold. As of now the motives of the shooter are unknown, but no other group has claimed authority over his havoc wrecking actions.

This horrific act of violence is the mass shooting with the largest death count in American history. June is LGBT Pride month and the intentional massacring of innocent people for something as ingrained and personal as sexuality is deplorable. In President Obama’s Sunday address, in regards to the shooting, he stated that, “This was an act of terror and an act of hate.”

The abomination of this catastrophe exemplifies the necessity for constant vigilance against the complacency in each journey towards equality. There is no sense in the needless deaths of these innocent people. This is the nature of hate crimes.

And it can be dangerous to color news with opinion, but in this case I will make an exception, warranted or not.

It may seem from certain perspectives that the fight for LGBT equality is finishing its last legs. That outside assumption couldn’t be further from the truth. The overturning of DOMA in 2013 did not end discrimination against LGBT people, just as the Civil Right’s Act of 1965 did not end racism. Large scale acts of hate such as this one can further the illustration of the nasty truth that there are still gross prejudices in America. And that these prejudices can lead to sorrowful loss of life.

In recent memory there have been a gross number of innocent lives lost to needless bloodshed. It can be easy to focus the blame upon a single individual and pass it off as a single occurrence, but when the murder rate for transgender people is deplorably high, when hate crimes are something that occur frequently across America and the world, when a person’s race, religion, or sexual orientation can validate harm against them; it is time to stop and look about at the way we classify people. There is such an emphasis on difference that it can be forgotten that the actions to protect and accept different groups of people must be made also by those outside of the groups being affected. It begs contemplation, that these tragic events are not isolated. Violence against people such as those harmed by the Orlando shooting is unwarranted and archaic.

The lives and relationships that these victims were forced to leave behind will not end with the pulling of that trigger, their lives will continue through their relatives, friends, memories, and legacies that carry more weight and power than any act of hatred can. It is essential that with this gruesome reminder of hatred and violence we strive to attain acceptance, equality, and safety for all people. Never forget that these lives lost have more value and importance than any act of spite ever can and that nothing can explain this violence.