the events unfolding in Orlando are nothing less than horrific.

Yet they also show that the case for LGBT rights has never been more critical.

I have been to Pulse nightclub, a low-slung gay bar in downtown Orlando,

And in many ways, it was, unremarkable.

Pulse was so unremarkable that it seems impossible that anybody could take offense.

Let alone gun down more than 50 people,

earlier reports however have suggested that the gunman had become enraged after seeing two men kissing.

Times were supposed to have changed.

When I first went out on the gay scene back in the early 1990s,

it was not unusual to bat off homophobic insults on the way home.

And sometimes it tipped over into violence.

I spent a night in hospital having my upper lip sewn back together,

after being queer bashed in Edinburgh in 1993.

It was depressing. It was upsetting.

But it was the 1990s, more than 20 years ago.

Many of us fought back, to change opinions.

In 1993 backed by Stonewall, the human rights group,

I took the British government to the European Court of Human Rights over the gay male age of consent than 21.

We all fought to be unremarkable, to be inoffensive.

We fought to be left alone.

The fact that people still hate LGBT people does not surprise, but it still shocks.

The reasons behind the shooting remain unclear,

whether the gunman was motivated by

a hatred of homosexuals,

or out of religious beliefs, it's almost beside the point.

The fact that hatred still exists, at all, is the point.

Behind the campaigns, the pride marches and the rainbow flags,

gay men, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people, lead ordinary, deeply boring lives.

Tonight SOHO stops at 7PM to remember those killed and injured in Orlando.

London's gay village will come to a standstill as people take to the streets.

But it will not just be the LGBT community standing shoulder to shoulder,

we will be joined by straight people of all ages, creeds, and colors.

And that, in its own way, will be unremarkable.