We were directed to keep it under three minutes because we only had an hour (actually only 45 minutes because the production before ours went long) for the rally before people had to leave for the street protest. Here is my speech. I worked hard to keep it under three minutes so everybody would have a chance to be heard, and it came in at about 2:45. Here it is if you are interested!
Hi my name is Maeve Griffith, I am a retired firefighter for the city of Spokane. I am also a veteran and a trans woman.
Many of us are here today because we did something very difficult. We told others the truth about ourselves, a truth that doesn’t make our lives any easier or safer. It was hard to do, to come out, but telling the truth was the honorable thing to do.
Most of us here, as kids, learned we should strive to be honorable people. Most of us here , I would wager, still believe the same. Yet, America elected to its highest office an embodiment of dishonor - a 34 time convicted felon, a clown who can’t open his mouth without lying, a con artist who stole money from veterans, someone who called those killed in action - Suckers and Losers, an adjudicated rapist, a thief, a traitor, a loser. I think that is why he hates LGBT people. We tell the truth. Truth and honor are concepts that he and his minions not only do not understand but are also concepts that they truly hate.
Our country will be forever damaged by those who flushed their honor down the toilet and voted for Trump. They knew who he was and what he would do. Even if justice is brought to Trump and all of his Republican enablers, including our own Congressman Baumgartner, the damage is done. There is little we can do to prove to other nations that we will not go off the rails again. With our breaking of trade agreements, our ignoring of our own laws and international laws, our stupid cruelty… How can we be trusted in anything now?
Trump is who he always showed us he was. But what of those who still support him? What happened to them? Why did they abandon their honor, their credibility, their humanity to join this shameful cult? Maybe now they realize how much they have irreparably hurt our nation and are in so deep that they think that is impossible to leave. But, they can leave.
To my Trump-supporting friends - If you continue down this road, embracing comfortable lies instead of accepting hard truths, it will kill you. You were raised the same as us - to value truth and honor. To keep ignoring the truth and suppressing your decency and humanity will be awful for you and the ones you love. One can look to the record of rampant substance abuse within the Trump Administration to see how people killed the pain of suppressing truth and their humanity.
We are going to have to figure out a way to welcome back the courageous few who have and will leave the pitiful Republican death cult, while it’s still possible. They will call it “woke” or “virtue signaling” as we offer a hand to them to rejoin a world of truth, decency and humanity. But we will do it because it is the honorable thing to do.
Thank you.
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