President’s Speech: 4 Freedoms Annual Awards Dinner & Gala
By Jann Dorothy, President, Stonewall Democratic Club of Greater Sacramento
When we met for this celebratory event one year ago as the presidential campaign was in full stride, none of us imagined the horror that would descend upon us on November 8 when the unthinkable happened. A minority of United States citizens chose to elect an ignorant, intemperate and unqualified caricature of a man to the highest office in the land. They elected a bigot and a liar.
Since then, it’s been the unfolding nightmare we all expected. This narcissistic thug coddles big business, the wealthy class, racists and religious bigots while shunning immigrants, LGBTQ citizens, non-Christians and anyone he views as lesser than him. He is thin-skinned and vengeful, but we must all hope that his astonishing incompetence will lead to his undoing. If the last week is any guide, he’s moving well down that path.
Like every other Democratic club in the nation, we at Stonewall were looking forward to a Hillary Clinton presidency and building on the legacy of President Obama. What we got instead was a challenge. A challenge to do everything we can do, every day, to stop Trump’s hateful, divisive and abusive actions toward us and toward our brothers and sisters.
Since the election, Stonewall has stayed focused on its mission to advance equal rights for all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. We support public policies that advance that mission in the United States, the State of California, and the greater Sacramento area.
We help elect to public office qualified Democratic Party candidates who are openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, as well as allies who support equal rights for the LGBT community.
This past year, we established the Sacramento Stonewall Foundation, a 501c3 charitable organization you will hear more about soon. Sac Stonewall has joined with others in becoming part of the #Indivisible and #Resist movements. We have turned our website and Facebook page into Stonewall Resist action pages where we encourage people to get involved, to get trained, to run for office, to mobilize, and to take other actions they can find right on our Resist page calendar.
Just two weeks ago, on the day that Trump signed his so-called Religious Freedom order that will permit churches to engage in political activities with no harm to their tax-exempt status, Stonewall staged a protest rally at the Capitol and turned out scores of people, many of whom you see in the photos in the slideshow running in the background on screen tonight.
In short, our reaction to the tragic event on November 8 has been to do what President Obama asked us all to do in his final speech as President. SHOW UP. DIVE IN. STAY AT IT.
Out of these words came our 4 Freedoms theme you see on the cover of tonight’s program guide.
ENGAGE. RESIST. UNITE.
It’s what we must all do. Your support of Sac Stonewall through your membership, through the generous support of our sponsors, and by all of you being here tonight help us keep up the fight every day.
