It might be the middle of Pride Month, but the United States got a strong wake up call to the homophobia that is still rampant in the United States early Sunday morning. We were also reminded why Pride isn't about celebrating but it's about raising awareness and trying to find a safe place in a world that wants to persecute LGBT+ without reason.

We all got reminded why it's still brave to come out as anything but straight when a man, Omar Mateen, entered one of the most well known the gay bars in Orlando, Pulse, and proceeded to shoot over a hundred people in the bar on their Upscale Latin night. With over 50 injured and 50 more dead, it is one of the biggest mass shooting in the country to ever occur.

Thirty people were held hostage in the process of trying to get everyone out of the bar. These are people that had to text their loved ones if they could, and for many of them, it was their last conversation. The bar even tried to warn people to get them out in a tweet, but the results were still horrifying.

The bar tried to help, but there is only so much they could do in a situation like this. These are people that went out to have a night of fun and had it turned into a night of terror, and my thoughts go out to them, their families and those that lost people last night to an act of homophobia.

This isn't an act that we should turn to blame on the man's religion though. Let's not turn an incident of homophobia into one of Islamophobia as well. Mateen's father was just as stunned as the rest of the country and wasn't aware of something like this was going to happen. He said it had nothing to do with their religion and probably had more to do with when his son got angered at seeing two men kissing in downtown Miami.

Investigators say this leans a lot closer to a hate crime than an act of terrorism, which is completely backed up by Mateen's father's statement. While they are investigating multiple avenues, it seems like hate crime is the far more likely option at the moment.

Mateen was killed when the SWAT team stormed the club to try to get the hostages out, but that doesn't change the fact that numerous other people are dead and injured from his actions.

Orlando has turned out in force to help those that survived the shooting though, and it brings a little bit of hope in this time. Homophobia might still be a problem, but the people of Orlando are determined to try to help in the wake of the attack.

While they try to restore our faith in humanity some, we need to remember that this is definitely a hate crime. Many Muslims want peace, they want to stand with people rather than cause violent, and they want to make things better. Don't push this blame on everyday Muslims. Place it with the radicals and the homophobes that feel the need to push their hate into violence and death.

This wasn't a man with a strong religion. This was a man with a history of violence who hated gay people and thought violence was the answer to his hate.

To those that say being part of the LGBT+ community, no one would ever choose to put themselves in danger like this. They deserve our support, our protection, our love, and our prayers.

Let's hope we can keep a hate crime like this from every happening again because it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

I send my thoughts and prayers to those who were injured and those that lost people early Sunday morning. My thoughts and prayers also go to the Muslims that are going to receive the backlash for this being placed on them.