The symbolic heart of the LGBTQ rights movement will be a place of peaceful demonstration once again this weekend.
New York Councilman Corey Johnson has organized an “LGBT Solidarity Rally,” set for this Saturday, Feb. 4, outside of the Stonewall Inn in Manhattan’s West Village neighborhood. The event’s Facebook page invites participants to “stand in stand in solidarity with every immigrant, asylum seeker, refugee and every person impacted” by President Donald Trump’s Muslim travel ban.
Sponsors of Saturday’s event include GLAAD, the Ali Forney Center, Heritage of Pride and Lambda Legal, while New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Sen. Brad Hoylman are among the lawmakers to lend their support. At present, an estimated 8,200 people have RSVPed to the event, with an additional 22,000 “interested” in attending.
It isn’t the only LGBTQ-specific demonstration to target the Trump administration being planned. More than 103,000 people have expressed interest in the National Pride March, scheduled for June 11 in Washington, D.C., which will also be hosting its annual Pride celebrations. A sister march, also slated to take place June 11, has just been announced for Los Angeles.
“I was seeing all the excitement around what was going on in Washington, D.C. regarding their Gay Pride efforts,” L.A. Police and Fire pension commissioner Brian Pendleton, who is co-organizing the California event, told Queerty. “Coming off of what the Women’s March did around the country, it seemed like a natural fit.”
Meanwhile, Johnson’s disapproval of Trump isn’t limited to the president’s sweeping executive orders. In a Wednesday blog post for HuffPost Queer Voices, Johnson blasted Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court as a “disastrous” choice. He pointed to the Colorado appeals judge’s professed admiration of Antonin Scalia, who was staunchly opposed to marriage equality and other LGBTQ issues before his death in 2016.
“With Gorsuch, Donald Trump is attempting to follow through on his promise to pack the court with right-wing, ideological extremists; justices who will guarantee government overreach on issues from reproductive rights to marriage equality,” Johnson wrote. “From his pre-judicial activity to his work on the bench, Gorsuch more closely resembles a strict adherent to Republican Party orthodoxy than a constitutional originalist.”
Needless to say, there’s a lot to be fired up about.
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