Trump’s sweeping deportation threat is unworkable and aimed at ‘rabid’ Republicans, says Newt Gingrich

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/13/trump-immigration-newt-gingrich

Well well well. Now that he got his party / his guy elected, he admits it was all just a game that was not possible. He is trying to shove some of the years of slime off himself and crawl to the side of good. Too late Newt. You choose your path, stay in your pen or your own fellows will turn on you and destroy you themselves. Hugs

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Former US House speaker says documented people, Dreamers, mothers and children must not be deported

‘They enrich our lives’: Newt Gingrich on immigrants and Trump’s mass deportation plan

Newt Gingrich during the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on 17 July 2024. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images

Newt Gingrich, the former US House speaker and presidential hopeful, said a section of his own Republican party was “rabid” over immigration and predicted Donald Trump’s suggestion that he could deport documented people as well as millions of undocumented people will not come to pass.

“I’d be very surprised if you see any significant effort to change the game for people who are here legally,” Gingrich said, weeks before Trump’s return to the White House. “I just think there’s a very small faction of the party that’s rabid about this.”

He also warned that public support for mass deportations would “collapse” if stories began to come out “about mothers or babies or children being deported”.

The president-elect may not welcome Gingrich’s intervention. After all, Trump won last year’s election promising mass deportations involving the armed forces and detention camps. He has chosen ultra-hardliners including Tom Homan and Stephen Miller and has suggested his administration will attempt to remove children and documented people, telling NBC: “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

Also at issue is the fate of millions of so-called Dreamers, undocumented people who were children when they were brought to the US, and Trump’s vow to remove birthright citizenship, a right protected by the 14th amendment but which Trump says he will strike down by executive order.

Amid widespread predictions of chaos and protest, Gingrich said he was “passionately in favor of trying to help find a path to create legality for the Dreamers”, a position that may put him less at odds with Trump, given Trump’s suggestion he might accept a deal on the matter.

Gingrich continued: “It’s nonsense to say somebody who came here when they were two, only speaks English, graduated as a high school valedictorian and is currently a nurse or a doctor should be deported. We’re going to deport them and they don’t speak the language of whatever country their parents came from, and they’ve earned the right to be Americans?

“ … I think [the Trump administration has to] to realize that there are gradations here that we’re dealing with, and try to think through, how do you both meet the long-term identity and national security interests of the country and meet the human concerns. And I think it’s a real challenge.”

Now 81, Gingrich was a Georgia representative from 1979 to 1999, the last four years as House speaker. In 2012, he ran for the Republican presidential nomination. A prolific author, he remains close to Trump, to whom he offered advice during the attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Gingrich spoke to the Guardian to mark the release of Journey to America with Newt and Callista Gingrich, a PBS documentary made with his wife about immigrants who have made major contributions to US public life.

“We are a nation of law despite some of the things that have been said [by Trump and his allies],” he said. “And I think that if you have legal standing in the American system, it’s very difficult to deport you. On the other hand, if you have no legal standing, it’s pretty easy to deport you, right? And I’m for doing the easy first. That’s why we should give [Dreamers] legal status, as a practical matter.”

Along those lines, Gingrich has put out a seven-step immigration plan, perhaps for Trump to consider.

Gingrich offered another warning: “Lincoln once said that with popular sentiment, anything is possible; without popular sentiment, nothing is possible. Well, you get very many human stories about mothers or babies or children being deported, then support for the deportation program will collapse.”

“Orange Ya Glad She’s Not In Heaven? by Clay Jones”

Bigots burn in Hell Read on Substack

Anita Bryant was famous for being a singer and had several hits way back in the day. Then she was known for orange juice as she became a spokesperson for the Florida Citrus Commission. Finally, she was known for being a bigot.

Bryant conducted herself as a wholesome Christian years before she campaigned against gay rights. Among her endorsements and products was a cookbook with a Jesus theme. It’s just not breakfast without orange juice and Jesus. Bless this bacon.

In 1979, she tarnished her image and her endorsements started to evaporate. What happened?

Dade County, Florida passed an ordinance that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. This upset many bigots, one of them being Anita Bryant. Her fear was that LGBTQ people would be treated like human beings and the nation would stop discriminating and spitting on them. Bigots gotta spit. She led a highly publicized campaign against gay rights and gay people as part of a homophobic organization called Save Our Children. The organization later had to change its name as there was another group that had the name first, and who really wanted to save children and not just use them to push a homophobic agenda.

Bryant and her fellow homophobes feared gay meant pedophilia and LGBTQ people having equal rights would teach children to grow up and treat them like equal human beings. Bryant was against LGBTQ people working in schools and becoming role models. She believed gays were recruiting, which was true. Men all over the country were given free toasters in exchange for sleeping with other men, attending Broadway musicals, and being all-around fabulous.

Bryant said at the time, “What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alternate way of life. I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before.”

During her anti-LGBTQ campaign, she said, “The recruitment of our children is absolutely necessary for the survival and growth of homosexuality… for since homosexuals cannot reproduce, they must recruit, must freshen their ranks.”

Here’s a fun fact: LGBTQ people are mostly born from straight parents.

She also said, probably while Jerry Falwell was standing beside her, “As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children” and “If gays are granted rights, next we’ll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters.” Nail biting is a sin? Was that the rejected 11th Commandment?

Also, the government needs to take my rights away because I used to sleep with a Beagle, and I’m not gonna lie. I miss sleeping with a Beagle.

Bryant was able to overturn the ordinance and continued her hate campaign throughout the nation. She galvanized America’s bigots but the LGBTQ community along with hetero friends conducted a campaign against Bryant and orange juice. Eventually, Bryant got pied. A civil rights supporter threw a banana cream pie right into Bryant’s face. Bryant responded with a homophobic slur, saying, “At least it was a fruit pie.”

I don’t know if I can condone or condemn the pieing as I’ve never had a banana cream pie.

Bryant said she loved homosexuals but hated their sins, which is bullshit.

Bryant eventually lost all her endorsements as she became toxic. Even other fundamentalist Christian organizations shunned her and stopped inviting her to their events. she stopped getting invites to singing events and even had a planned variety show canceled. Bryant eventually had to declare bankruptcy.

During the campaign against Bryant, bars stopped serving screwdrivers because of the orange juice and instead served Anita Bryant specials, which were made from vodka and apple juice which were hopefully served with a side of banana cream pie. Drag queens started impersonating Anita Bryant.

One of Bryant’s granddaughters came out and wasn’t sure about inviting her grandmother to her marriage to another woman. She should have invited her and not told her beforehand what was happening. That would have been fun.

Today, there are still bigots in government targeting the LGBTQ community and trying to suppress their rights. There are laws in places like Tennessee and Florida discriminating against drag shows. The should all be pied with banana cream pies.

I hope Anita Bryant, Ron DeSantis, that Duck Dynasty asshole, and every bigoted Republican likes pulp in their orange juice.

Thank you: To everyone who’s a subscriber, especially those who are PAID subscribers. You’re keeping me alive and free to focus on drawing cartoons, writing blogs, making videos, and creating my usual chaos for MAGAts. You rock! If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, please consider becoming one at $8 a month.

Music note: I listened to The Beatles’s Sgt. Pepper while coloring.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-go see)

My day. How I love life

I woke at midnight and got up at 2am after laying there hoping to go back to sleep. Then I started doing Joe my God news stuff. But at 5 am Julie Kamyk’s sister came on and started talking to me. I listened to what was happening to her and she is suffering as I am from seasonal depression. But we both are fierce fighters for her brother and she did not know the crap her father was doing over the laptop Kamyk paid half for but his dad refused to give him. I offered to pay the half price the dad paid that he was holding over Kamyk refusing to release it, and I told her if that did not work I would buy a new $400 dollar one myself and send it to him. She said that wouldn’t be needed, she would take the laptop from him and give it to Kamyk. She and I discussed other needs of his and she made lists to get them done.

Then as I started to do posts and stuff … I got a Skype call from Kamyk. Well that started a 6 hour call. I asked him how I could help him and he said just stay on the line and talk to him. So I did. Because when one of my friends is in a care house with few of his own resources and they ask me to just keep talking with them … oh yes I got that covered.

We got a lot covered, we talked and talked and talked. In and out of bad things and into good things.

After all that expenditure of energy and spirit to support my friend, I find I am drained and hard to move forward to dealing with blog things. I gave him my all. Hugs

“That red bird comes all winter”

(Worriedman comments on another blog I read; I found he has a substack, and it’s beautiful. Enjoy!)

That red bird comes all winter /Firing up the landscape /As nothing else can do. by Worriedman

Mary Oliver – Red Bird Read on Substack

The whole poem –

Red Bird

Red bird came all winter

Firing up the landscape

As nothing else could.

Of course I love the sparrows,

Those dun-colored darlings,

So hungry and so many.

I am a God-fearing feeder of birds,

I know he has many children,

Not all of them bold in spirit.

Still, for whatever reason-

Perhaps because the winter is so long

And the sky so black-blue,

Or perhaps because the heart narrows

As often as it opens-

I am grateful

That red bird comes all winter

Firing up the landscape

As nothing else can do.

No way to go wrong with Mary Oliver!

I was really happy to take these photographs today! I filled the feeders yesterday. By this morning the word had spread! Places full of birds. I’m out of bird food now. It’ll be a week before I can get to Costco. I was hoping the Cardinals would show up when I put the food out yesterday! I love the one in the lower left that’s all puffed up.

Huck!

He has space issues.

Paulo! It’s hard to go wrong taking pictures of him. The trick is to put the Pale Blue Eye of Judgement right in the center of the photograph.

Can you feel him looking into your soul?

This is Fenn pretending she didn’t take a bite of my lemon bar while I went to get a fork.

She was guilty. Guilty as Hell. Her breath smelled like lemon curd.

Sam is obviously quite wise. He’s very much against Bitcoin.

I had the greenhouse to myself this weekend. It was nice! It was snowing pretty hard at sunrise on Saturday. Today was mostly clear when the sun came up. A few clouds to shed some color.

That’s all I got room for – thanks for dropping by! (snip)

Let’s talk about no drill baby drilling in Alaska, Biden, and a question….

Snow in Florida

(The title is the link to the poem, to find out more about it and the poet.)

Florida Snow P. Scott Cunningham

The Everglades are burning. I’m fifteen.
I open the window, knock out the screen

and crawl up the tiles to the apex of the roof.
Overhead the black clouds march on hooves

from the sunset to the ocean. It’s rare for the wind
to carry the sugar burns in my direction.

I assume the purpose of the fires is to make
the sugar sweeter, but besides covering the state

in smoke, all they do is make the harvest cheaper.
Some men spent a fortune to drain the river

but the cost was all up front. The stalks get so dry some-
times a piece of lightning starts the fire for them

and what’s left behind can’t help becoming tinder.
I think the land will tire of not being water soon.

Tonight the air is cold and smells like winter.
Ashes fall around me like pieces of the moon.

Turn Left At Greenland

by Clay Jones

This map may not be entirely accurate Read on Substack

It’s weird we’re talking about our nation taking possession of Greenland. It’s even weirder we’re talking about taking it by force. It’s not a joke. Donald Trump is serious. He even sent Donald Trump Jr. there to make a point about taking the territory, unless he hoped Jr. wouldn’t come back. Unfortunately for our nation, he did.

Remember during the campaign when Trump promised “no more wars?” Now, he’s talking about starting three of them. He wants to take Greenland, which is a territory of Denmark.

Today, Sniffy Jr. shared a poll on X/Twitter showing that a high majority of Greenlanders wanted independence. What dumbass Jr. didn’t share is that the poll was conducted in 2019. I’m sure the numbers are close to that today, but if you want to cite a poll for your argument, you need one a little more recent than seven years ago. He also didn’t share that the question was “Can you envision Greenland being independent from Denmark?”. The poll, conducted by the University of Copenhagen, didn’t even ask if they wanted independence, just if they could see it in the future. It should also be noted that the poll didn’t ask if they wanted to become a territory of the United States.

If we’re going to use old polls, one from 2017 showed that 78 percent of Greenlanders oppose independence if it means a lower standard of living. Hey, Greenlanders, look at the standard of living in Puerto Rico.

Denmark is a member of NATO. The treaty is a commitment that every NATO nation will come to the defense of any other member who is attacked. It’s why Putin invaded Ukraine after Trump was defeated by Joe Biden in 2020. Putin believed Trump would destroy NATO. When Trump was ousted, Putin felt NATO was here for good and invaded Ukraine before Ukraine could apply for membership in NATO. That’s why it pisses me off when MAGAts say Putin never invaded while Trump was president. They ignore that Putin couldn’t as it would have been counterproductive to Trump’s attempt to destroy NATO. After Putin did invade Ukraine, two more nations joined the alliance, Finland and Sweden, the latter taking a neutral stance on all wars since 1814.

If Trump invades Greenland, every nation in NATO will be bound to defend Denmark’s territory, even Sweden….hell, even Canada. Trump would start a war with 31 nations, our own allies, by attacking Greenland. Has anyone told Trump this? Trump’s desire to steal Greenland is a new level of stupid that should be named after him. We could call it “Trump Stupid.”

Examples of Trump Stupid would be peeing on a car battery, having unprotected sex with one of Trump’s ex-girlfriends, giving Mike Tyson a wedgie, allowing your daughter to date Matt Gaetz, appointing RFK Jr. as director of Health and Human Services, staring into an eclipse, stating publicly that what you and your daughter have in common is sex, or voting for Donald Trump. Note that nearly half our nation is Trump Stupid enough to vote for Trump twice.

Trump is willing to start a war with 31 nations for a piece of property that has fewer people than Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Trump is also looking at Canada becoming our 51st state. Canada is a nation of 33 million people which would make it our second-largest state (replacing Texas and eliminating them from bragging about how big they are, ignoring Alaska since it became a state in 1959) and would add around 50 new seats to the House of Representatives. This would give the Democratic Party control of Congress. Please don’t tell Trump that.

Good luck in making Canadians proud U.S. citizens. There are Quebecers who don’t even like being Canadians. Calling a Quebecer an American is akin to calling a Scot British. I learned about that one for myself.

Trump wants to take back the Panama Canal which is owned by Panama. We returned it to them and there’s a treaty for that. As we learned during the first Trump regime, he doesn’t care about treaties. Panama is not going to return the canal to us, so Trump is talking about taking it by force, making him the second Republican president (sic) to invade that country

Trump is also talking about invading Mexico to destroy drug cartels. That would violate Mexico’s sovereignty. An invasion of Mexico would be like an invasion of Afghanistan in that we’d be there for two decades at minimum. It would be a huge mess for us to clean up, even decades after Trump is gone. Get that smile off your face.

Trump wanting to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America is just him being belligerent. If he wanted it to be representative of the two continents (in case you’re a Republican, North America and South America), he’d propose calling it the Gulf of The Americas.

The Gulf has carried the name Gulf of Mexico since 1607, which is older than the United States. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said North America should be renamed “América Mexicana,” or “Mexican America,” because a founding document dating from 1814 that preceded Mexico’s constitution referred to it that way. Someone tell Trump. I think “Mexican America” has a nice ring to it.

What happens if the United States changes the name of the Gulf through legislation? Only the United States would recognize it and turn into a situation like the Sea of Japan. It’s referred to as the “Sea of Japan” in Japan and the West while it’s referred to as the “Whale Sea” in China. Russia calls it the “Japanese Sea,” South Korea calls it the “East Sea,” and North Korea named it the “East Sea of Korea.” There’s a lot of contention over this as the Koreas claim the name “Sea of Japan” didn’t become accepted internationally until they were under occupation by Japan.

We can change the name of the Gulf of Mexico or any other geographic location we want, but other nations are not required to follow our lead.

If Mexico changes the name of the Gulf to the Gulf of Tiny-Finger Fuhrer, we don’t have to play along but I might anyway.

Fun fact: The Greenland shark can live up to 250-500 years. They don’t become sexually mature until they’re around 150 and their gestation lasts from eight to 18 years. My question is, What do they do with themselves for those first 150 years?

Creative note: I wrote this cartoon yesterday, and then I wrote the polar bear cartoon. I decided to go with the Polar Bear first because I had to finish up the cartoon for the FXBG Advance, and the bear cartoon would be quicker to draw. Drawing all the lettering and spending five hours on this cartoon was the better choice for today’s work assignment.

Drawn in 30 seconds: (snip-More)

Peace & Justice History for 1/13

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryjanuary.htm#january13

California Fire Facts

California Fire Facts

I love this. The right wing media and republicans constantly lie about things with confidence expecting their viewers to never look up the truth about a situation. This page by Gov. Newsom is simple and easy to read. It totally destroys the lies pushed by right wing media and the maga cult. Hugs.

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LIE – California Cut Firefighting Budgets

FACT: The number of CalFIRE personnel has nearly doubled since 2019 (from 5,829 to 10,741)

FACT: CalFIRE’s budget has nearly doubled since 2019 ($2 Billion to $3.8 Billion)

LIE – These Wildfires are Caused by California’s Mismanagement of Forest Lands

FACT: The budget for managing the forest (AKA “raking the forest”) is now TEN TIMES larger than it was when Governor Newsom took office. It was a $200 million annual budget in 2018. The state has now invested $2 billion, in addition to the $200 million annually.

FACT: California dramatically ramped up state work to increase wildland and forest resilience, as well as adding unprecedented resources to support wildfire response. California officials treated more than 700,000 acres of land for wildfire resilience in 2023, and prescribed fires more than doubled between 2021 and 2023.

LIE – Governor Newsom is working with developers to change zoning in burned areas to allow “mass apartments”

LIE – California’s smelt fish policy led to the Southern California wildfires

This is an outlandish connection to make. The policy is not about water availability in Southern California.

Broadly, there is no water shortage in Southern California right now, despite Trump’s claims that he would open some imaginary spigot.

Orange County Water District, which supplies groundwater to the north half of the county, has enough supply to carry its 2.5 million customers through the worst of any potential droughts for 3 to 5 years.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California also has an abundance, with a record 3.8 million acre-feet of water in storage. That’s enough water to supply 40 million people for a year.

LIE – California Ran Out of Water and Reservoirs Are Empty

Facts About Water Availability

PolitiFact: Fact-check: Los Angeles fires fuel falsehoods, including by Trump about water management

FACT: Water reservoirs in Southern California are at record levels. There is no shortage of water in Southern California.

FACT: Wildland firefighters don’t use hydrants — they use water tenders. And that is what has been used to ensure continued water access. Three million gallons of water were stored in three large tanks for fire hydrants in the area before the Palisades fire, but the supply was exhausted because of the extraordinary nature of this hurricane-force firestorm.

FACT: The Governor has called for an independent investigation into the loss of water pressure to local fire hydrants and the reported unavailability of water supplies from the Santa Ynez Reservoir. While urban water systems are built for structure fires and fire suppression, not hurricane-force firestorms, it is important to understand what happened so we can be better prepared in the future.

FACT: There is no water shortage in Southern California right now, despite Trump’s claims that he would open some imaginary spigot.

Orange County Water District, which supplies groundwater to the north half of the county, has enough supply to carry its 2.5 million customers through the worst of any potential droughts for3 to 5 years.

The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — which serves 19 million people mostly with imported water — also has an abundance, “with a record 3.8 million acre-feet of water in storage,” (1 million acres of land with water that is 3.8 feet deep) according to Interim General Manager Deven Upadhyay, who issued a statement last week. That’s enough water to supply 40 million people for a year.

FACT: Reservoirs are full and water is available.

LIE: 60 fire trucks from the state of Oregon are being held up in Sacramento to for “emissions testing”

FACT: out-of-state fire trucks take part in. 15 minute safety & equipment inspection to ensure no issues with the vehicle. At the time of the original post, the Oregon firefighting teams were already in the Los Angeles area battling the blazes.

LIE: Firefighters are using women’s purses to fight fires.

FACT: The LAFD uses canvas bags to fight small trash fires because they are more efficient to put out the fires as opposed to a long hose.

LIE: The Hollywood sign is/was on fire.

FACT: It was not on fire.

California is using every available resource to fight the unprecedented wildfires impacting Southern California.

10,170 emergency personnel deployed

3,780 CalFire

2638 OES

1445 Caltrans

871 CDCR

836 CHP

855+ Guard (400 MP in LA County now)

1,059+ Fire Engines

143 water tenders (tanker trucks)

116 Dozers

52 Helicopters

9 Air Tankers

Latest Containment Update (Sun. January 12th at 8:09am PT)

Please visit CA.Gov/LAFires if you are looking for resources and real-time information on the fires happening right now.

Local Unitarian churches host Big Gay Wedding Day to support LGBTQ+ rights amid uncertainty

https://www.wxxinews.org/local-news/2025-01-12/local-unitarian-churches-host-big-gay-wedding-day-to-support-lgbtq-rights-amid-uncertainty

I post this to again affirm that not all Christian denominations / churches are bigoted racist jerks using their holy book to bash others they don’t like. There are many good supportive Christians in the world as there are members of other faiths along with people of no faith. We should call out the bigots who use their religion to control others rather than as a guide for how they live their lives. But remember we must not blame all religious people / people of faith for the actions of those who are abusive of others. I am a live and let live person. I don’t want to control the lives of other people. I can barely handle being an adult in my own life, I don’t need the job of telling everyone else how to live. The caveat I will add to the live and let live way of life, it assumes others do not want to cause harm to others. Society has a responsibility to protect and care for each other and protect those who need such from those who do not respect the personhood of others. Hugs

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WXXI News | By Stephanie Ballard-Foster

Published January 12, 2025 at 10:48 AM EST

Stephanie Ballard-Foster

/

WXXI News

Beth Bloom (L) and Pat Uleskey (R), among the couples getting married Saturday in downtown Rochester.

Love and resilience were on full display this past weekend at the inaugural Big Gay Wedding Day, held at Rochester’s First Universalist Church.

Organized by local Unitarian Universalist congregations, including First Unitarian Church of Rochester, First Universalist Church of Rochester and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canandaigua, the free event offered LGBTQ+ couples the opportunity to marry in a safe and affirming environment.

The event came at a time of growing concern over potential shifts in federal policies that some worry could threaten marriage equality and other LGBTQ+ protections under the incoming administration. Advocacy groups have voiced fears that hard-won rights for queer and trans individuals may be at risk.

Stephanie Ballard-Foster

/

WXXI News

Caliana (L) and Angelas Rolon Torres (R) who were among the couples getting married Saturday in downtown Rochester.

Rev. Lane-Mairead Campbell, Minister of the First Universalist Church of Rochester and one of the event’s organizers, said the importance of providing certainty and support for LGBTQ+ couples in the face of these challenges cannot be overstated.

“We’re seeing anti-transgender legislation being upheld and passed like across our country, and so this is a way that we could provide some certainty for our community and be able to provide some space to be able to get married legally, safely, quickly, inexpensively,” said Campbell.

Local vendors were on hand to donate flowers, cakes and professional photography services to create a celebratory atmosphere. After the ceremonies, couples and their supporters gathered for a reception.

Rev. Shari Halliday-Quan, Lead Minister at the First Unitarian Church and an event organizer, said her own experience demonstrates why events like this are important. In 2012, same-sex marriage was illegal in New York, so she and her now-wife planned to marry in Massachusetts, where their Unitarian Universalist congregation welcomed same-sex weddings. By the time they wed, New York had legalized same-sex marriage, allowing them to marry at home.

Stephanie Ballard-Foster

/

WXXI News

A wedding cake at an event in downtown Rochester on Saturday, titled, ‘Big Gay Wedding.’ Local vendors donated flowers, cakes, and professional photography for the event which was organized by LGBTQ+ advocates.

Even though more than a decade has passed, Halliday-Quan said the need to create safe and affirming spaces for queer couples remains pressing.

“It matters deeply,” she said. “I think today, that right now, we’re helping couples secure rights that they’re worried will be taken away. We all hope that that won’t be the case. But what I want folks to know, and what I think today really celebrates and uplifts, is that queer and trans people have a place in our community, that you are loved and worthy.”

Among the couples married during the event were Caliana and Angeles Rolon Torres, who first discovered the opportunity while scrolling through Instagram. The couple, grateful for the chance to marry without financial barriers, said the event was especially meaningful after facing financial struggles.

“It means the world in that regard,” said Caliana. “The fact that we can do something like this, and there’s any organization doing something like this that enables people to get married, not only for free, but also before people are worried about it and things like that, is incredible. Like, outside of the marriage itself, the fact that this is happening is an amazing concept.”

Since the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York in 2011, more than 25,000 same-sex couples in the state have tied the knot. Nationally, there are an estimated 711,000 married same-sex couples in the United States.