More than 2,000 demonstrators protested
President Donald Trump's policies on Saturday outside New York City's
historic Stonewall Inn.
Protesters attending the LGBT
solidarity rally waved rainbow flags and chanted messages of
resistance such as “refugees are welcome here.”
Last year, then-President Barack Obama
dedicated the Stonewall Inn as the first national monument honoring
the LGBT rights movement.
The monument includes Christopher Park,
the Stonewall Inn and the surrounding area that was part of the 1969
Stonewall uprising that many credit as the birth of the modern LGBT
rights movement.
Organizers used Facebook to get the
word out, saying that the rally was needed to “stand in solidarity
with every immigrant, asylum seeker, refugee and every person
impacted by Donald Trump's illegal, immoral, unconstitutional and
un-American executive orders” and “speak out against Trump's
selection of the most anti-LGBT nominees and appointees in modern
history.”
The event was co-sponsored by LGBT
groups GLAAD, The Trevor Project and Lambda Legal.
Senate minority leader Charles Schumer
was among the Democratic leaders who spoke at the rally.
“Let me remind people of why we're
here,” Schumer
told the crowd. “The pioneers at Stonewall were alone, but
they fought and fought and eventually they won. We are gonna do the
same thing!”