First of all, I want to recognize that we are gathered here today in the middle of Pride month and to say Happy Pride! Pride is a celebration but it is also a protest. Pride started with a small group of people fighting back. And it still matters because so many still hate LGTBQ people, because we are still constantly trying to negate our existence, because there is still so much legislation being passed to erase us. But we won’t back down. Pride is still important because so many of our fellow Americans still get mad that Pride exists. It’s important because so many of us are still being ridiculed, shunned, and even killed for being LGBTQ. So we must keep fighting back and celebrating the beauty of otherness.
It is incredible to see so many of you here today. You’re here because you believe in democracy. We’re here because we love our country. Because we know that this nation was founded to reject oligarchy. Yet in Washington DC today the streets are being pummeled by tanks because of one man’s fragile ego. Perhaps even worse, in DC today members of Congress continue to lick the boots of a man who wants to take away the rights of not only women, not only LGBTQ people, not only people of color, not only immigrants. He wants to take away the rights of everyone except himself and his bootlickers. He wants to take away the foundations of American democracy.
We have now gone through almost ten years of this with this wannabe king. I know that all of you, like me, are weary. Many of us have been fighting back our whole lives, not only for ourselves, but for others. We are sick and tired of having to resist. But we cannot give up. I know that you, like me, often feel powerless and at your wits’ end. But we have to keep going. We have no other choice. We have to do it for the ones who want to be here but can’t.
We have to do it for our children whose rights are being threatened, whose educations are being taken away so this wannabe dictator can build a dumber constituency. We have to do it for our colleagues in the arts, humanities and sciences, who work is being threatened. We have to do it for people living with HIV/AIDS, both here in the U.S. and abroad, because this would-be king want to cut hundreds of millions of dollars for prevention and treatment that has saved millions of lives. We have to do it for journalists, whose work and lives have come under threat from the rhetoric of this hateful administration. We have to do it for our elders, who have worked their whole lives and are having their retirement taken away and medical care threatened so he can line his own pockets. We have to do it because the bigger threat than Trump is the people who voted for him and continue to defend him.
Often I feel like I don’t know what to do. Often I even feel hopeless. But then I remember that the people have the power to make real change happen if they will just embrace it. That’s what happened at Stonewall and in other protests for LGBTQ rights in DC, San Francisco and even here in Lexington, Kentucky. That’s what happened during the civil rights movement in Montgomery, in Greensboro, in Nashville and right here in Lexington, Kentucky.
I believe the best way we can fight back is at the local level. Here in Kentucky, we have one of the worst licker of Trump’s boots in the country as one of our members of Congress: Andy Barr. When the Episcopal Rector Marian Budde beautifully begged Donald Trump to have mercy on immigrants and LGBTQ people, Barr immediately did Trump’s bidding and bitterly criticized her. Yet when a member of Congress was thrown to the floor and arrested two days ago for daring to ask Dog-Killer Kristi Noem a question, Bootlicker Barr said nothing to defend his own colleague.
He isn’t serving Kentuckians. He’s serving a wannabe King and we have to get him out of office.
Now he’s running for an even bigger seat, the US Senate seat that will be left vacant by McConnell. We have to do everything we can to make sure he doesn’t win in 2026. This is how we affect change. If we can get these bootlickers out of office Trump will have no power. Let’s vote for senators who will represent us. We can make a difference. We are doing it by being here today, and I am so thankful to all of you for your determination. In closing:
No Bootlickers, No Kings.
No Bootlickers, No Kings.
No Bootlickers, No Kings.
See more pictures and videos from the rally at the instagram account @ SilasHouse
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