LGBT Solidarity Rally: New Yorkers Protest Trump At Stonewall Monument

GREENWICH VILLAGE, NY — Hundreds of New Yorkers crowded the streets near Stonewall Inn on Saturday, turning out for an LGBT solidarity rally to protest Donald Trump's recent executive orders.

The crowd remained for nearly three hours as elected officials, activists and community leaders voiced their support for Muslims and immigrants and promised to continue pushing back against the president's agenda.

The solidarity rally was organized by New York City council member Corey Johnson, who represents districts including Greenwich Village, Chelsea and Times Square. Johnson organized the rally during the president's chaotic second week in office. On Jan. 27, Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning visitors from seven predominantly Muslim countries, and suspending the nation's refugee program for 120 days. The order plunged airports throughout the country into prolonged chaos, as immigration officials struggled to determine the specific implications of the ban. The ban has been suspended after a judge on Friday granted a temporary restraining order.

As protestors took to airports around the country to oppose the executive order, a draft of a different executive order that would roll back civil rights protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans was leaked from inside the White House. Although the White House has given no official indication that Trump will sign or is even seriously considering the order, its mere existence sent shockwaves through LGBT communities and spurred many to mobilize. Trump has previously said that he is opposed to marriage equality.

Saturday's rally crowded the streets next to and nearby the Stonewall Inn, largely considered one of the birthplaces of the LGBT civil rights movement. Barack Obama declared the site a national monument in June.

"One of the many things that Stonewall taught us was that progress does not come easy," Johnson said to the bundled-up crowd gathered before him.

Johnson urged those gathered on Saturday to maintain their opposition, calling on the crowd to elect progressive candidates into Congress during the 2018 mid-term elections.

"He may not have come out yet and said he wants to persecute gay people but Trump has appointed senior people and cabinet members who are anti-gay and his collusion with the religious right is the equivalent of making a pact with the professional anti-gay forces," Johnson told The Guardian.

Actor Cynthia Nixon also spoke on Saturday, and urged vigilance for the influence that Trump's vice president, Mike Pence, might have. Pence, formerly the governor of Indiana, has long been criticized by gay and transgender groups who says he has an anti-LGBT record.

"We don't know yet what Donald Trump has in store for us and chances are he doesn't either," Nixon told the crowd. "He poses as our ally, he reassures us that he would never let his administration roll back our hard won rights but he chooses Mike Pence the poster boy for anti-LGBT rhetoric, legislation, and conversion therapy as his vice president."

Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also spoke briefly before the crowd. He ended his remarks with an energetic call-and-response from the crowd to "dump Trump!"

"I've got your back, and I know you've got mine," Schumer said on Saturday, a nod to the role as Trump-resistor-in-chief that Democrats have increasingly asked him to take on during the new Republican administration.

Image credit: Ciara McCarthy/Patch