Every day seems to bring an additional miserable note to the tragic tale that is the Orlando Pulse shooting. The Sunshine State’s blue skies have turned dark with grief as another mass murder has robbed, this time, partygoers at an LGBT nightclub, of their lives and health. A supposed safe space became a scene of horror; and a place of joy soured into a vision of hell itself.

As President Barack Obama visited grieving relatives yesterday, speculation swirled as to the killer’s motives. Was it an intended act of Jihad? Was it fuelled by internalised homophobia? Of course, it may have been both. We know in our complicated human lives that tragedy seldom has one source.

Omar Mateen seems to have been a regular visitor to this nightspot; even if reports suggest he was a bit of a loner once there. From the reports of his family, and friends, he certainly seems to have had his struggles in life. His first wife is reported in the US media this week to have suggested he had struggles with his own sexuality. Who knows? Perhaps, this tragic spree of death was rooted in the pain of an inability to find self-acceptance?

For those of us who have grown up LGB or T, this revelation of a possible internal struggle would come as no great shock. Albeit, not with the same horrendous consequences, most of us (especially of a certain age) have known feelings of self-loathing that threaten to tear us apart. This self-hate inevitably goes on to adversely affect our relationships with others and the world around us. t was Jesus, who famously said “love your neighbour as you love yourself”. I wonder if he knew the latter was a requisite of the former?

It can be tortuous to grow up knowing that you are different – unable to be at peace with oneself because your home, school, faith and community culture tell you that you are not "normal", or are in some ways "wrong". How can you love yourself, when no one around you will allow you the safe space to be yourself? That is the experience that many in the LGBT community have had to endure growing up; and we are cruelly reminded this week that even in these more enlightened days (in some parts of the world, anyway), we have by no means finished our journey to freedom.

As Pride marches and festivities mark the coming of summer - the coming out from the darkness of fear into the light of love and acceptance – it is all the more important that we continue the long walk to freedom. Even in the modern world, there are still too many places in our communities where to be LGB or T is notable or, at worse, difficult (even on some occasions dangerous).

Homophobia, despite all the progressive legislation of the last 10 years and more, remains stubbornly present in Scotland’s cultural, religious, and sporting communities, not to mention in its workplaces. As someone in the religious sphere of Scottish life, I know the responsibilities that we all bear to make our places of worship and spiritual communities truly inclusive and welcoming.

For those of us growing up in the faith communities which we love, cherish, and which we were called by God into, our experience has often been that they have not always been nurturing or safe spaces. Maybe 30 years ago it was understandable that scientific understanding and knowledge of human sexuality had not yet quite fully percolated through to the conscience and zeitgeist of religious communities.

But in 2016, the fact that full inclusion of LGBT people still seems stubbornly difficult to achieve is little short of a scandal. If preachers of any description have never given a sermon about God’s love for LGBT people without including caveats and qualifications, this weekend would be a good time.

In fact, it falls upon all of us to do what we can to build a society where people are able to be fully human – accepted, loved, and clothed with human dignity. To build communities where diversity of culture, ethnicity, religious faith and other particularities, are viewed as a source of enrichment rather than a threat. Hatred of ourselves and others only leads to pain and suffering. Surely the truth is #Lovewins

Rev Scott Rennie is minister at Queen’s Cross Parish Church, Aberdeen.