RALEIGH, N.C. — Hundreds gathered Wednesday at the North Carolina General Assembly for the last Moral Monday Movement event of the summer, with coalition groups including the North Carolina NAACP, Equality North Carolina and others presenting what they call a “Real LGBTQ Agenda for North Carolina.”
The Wednesday rally and protest, just a few days after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision on marriage equality, included the arrest of six protesters inside the Legislative Building, where organizers assailed political leaders fro overriding Gov. Pat McCrory’s veto of Senate Bill 2.
“This legislature overrode Gov. McCrory’s veto of Senate Bill 2, a nasty, narrowly-framed piece of legislation that says magistrates, people who work for us, the citizens of the state of North Carolina, do not have to abide by the oath that they took. That is wrong and that is not equal protection,” said Chris Sgro, the executive director of Equality NC, according to Raleigh’s WTVD.
Progressive organizer Jake Gellar-Goad was at the event. He said it was the second Moral Monday event focused on LGBT equality and immigrant equality.
“It was really powerful to hear old civil rights songs being sung that weaved in LGBTQ equality themes into the words of the song. A true moment of intersectionality,” Gellar-Goad told qnotes. “And [NAACP North Carolina President] Rev. [William] Barber called on the LGBTQ community to show up at the July 13th court case rally in Winston-Salem saying he wanted to see just as many rainbow flags waving there. And that voting rights are LGBTQ rights.”
Other issues discussed at the rally included in-state tuition for undocumented students, expansion of Medicaid and transgender equality.
In addition to the NAACP and Equality North Carolina, other organizations coalesced around the rally, including Southerners on New Ground, the Freedom Center for Social Justice and the Latin American Coalition.
Together, they produced a document, “A Real LGBTQ Agenda for North Carolina.”
“Some North Carolinians think that Gay marriage is the only issue the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) community cares about,” reads the document. “Marriage is an important win for many of us, but we are also deeply affected by other issues on the Moral Monday agenda.”
Other issues listed in the document include poverty, education, criminal justice inequality, health care and voting rights. You can read the full document below.
Following, see photos taken by Gellar-Goad and submitted to qnotes.
