Well, all month long here on WH,
we have been bringing you the stories
of Pride Month on WHS 11 in our Moments
That Matter campaign and how it's being
celebrated right here throughout Kentucky.
Anna, I'm joined now by Chris Hartman
from the Fairness Campaign to
break down what has been a real,
really busy year for you.
And you know, and not just Pride Month
and focusing on that, I think pe
sometimes forget your work is year round.
I know you're already.
Crossing off the days on your calendar to
the special to the session in January, right.
Can't wait for that.
Yeah, yeah. Pride
doesn't stop at the Fairness campaign.
I mean, in heck, it feels like
Pride doesn't stop around Kentu.
You know, there are about 25 Pre
festivals now all across the Commonwealth.
It goes all the way from the beginning
of the June to the end of Octob.
And I mean June and October in particular,
the two really front loaded mon,
both of those months virtually
every Saturday 123 sometimes 4
pride festivals on a single day.
Is there a city or a town across Kentucky
that just started celebrating pride month?
There was doing something smallt
surprised you in a way that you thought?
Oh wow, that that's that's the
resident speaking up and speakig
out to have something like that.
I mean so many places have pride
that I think folks don't imagin.
Murray Pikeville, Berea,
Richmond Pride was huge this ye.
So much stuff going on.
You know just a couple weeks
ago we saw some LGBTQ activists
in Corbin held a demonstration.
Unfortunately they faced down te
barrel of a gun there with an anti LGBTQ
protester who came to harass th.
I mean unfortunately.
This is still Pride is very much
a protest for so many queer fols
all across the Commonwealth,
because it is still so dangerous
to be out and loud and proud,
and it's why Pride is still so necessary.
What do you make of the level of
tension and how the the session went,
how issues were addressed?
What do you make of that?
Where did it?
Where did it come from?
To reach that boiling point
because it's suddenly,
I think a lot of people look around and say,
wow, that got hot,
that got heated and why now?
Yeah, let me tell you,
it didn't come from the grassro.
It's not coming from the constituency.
It's coming from well funded
national conservative think tan,
interest groups like the Alliane
Defending Freedom, Focus on the Family,
they've been pouring hundreds of
millions of dollars into this
campaign to attack trans kids,
arguably our smallest and
most vulnerable population.
And the only reason they're doit
is for the cheapest political points.
I mean we saw Max Wise and Kelly
Craft do it when they were runng
for governor and Lieutenant governor.
They dug their heels in on anti trans
issues because they thought that
was going to score them those cp
political points and it didn't .
However,
nationwide they've turned it ino
a numbers game several years ag.
There were just a few anti LGBTQ
bills filed around the nation
and here in Kentucky last year.
You know, more than 100 this ye.
More than 550 anti LGBTQ bills have been
proposed all across the nation in Kentucky.
We faced a dozen of them this y.
That's more than almost all of my previous
14 legislative sessions combine.
And it is just again so that fos
can put it on their political
postcards when they're running
for re election in November.
Looking back, what's been the w,
What's been the losses?
Know you like to look to the
wind sometime and say no,
all right, There's some movemen,
There's some wiggle room that I
can maybe expand on a little bi.
It's tough to look to the positive right now.
But what I will share and what I've been
saying as I go across the state is that
I've never seen our community activated.
Like this before.
I've never seen folks engaged
in the legislative process.
Thousands of LGBTQ Kentuckians
came to the state capitol this
year to fight for their rights.
I'd never seen anything like th,
and so much so that I mean they their shouts,
their cries were reverberating.
We're shaking the building,
shaking the capital.
And so I've seen the pride
festivals bigger than ever.
I've seen our events more
folks than ever before.
So the strength in our numbers .
Bigger than ever before,
do you think you mentioned kind of the the
national focus politically on on Kentucky
and that's why we saw all the h.
Do you think that businesses are
beginning to feel some pressure?
Do you see as many businesses being out
there and saying oh we have pride month,
this is what we're doing to supt
our employees and this is what t
we're doing to attract employee.
Do you still see that momentum t
we talked about last year on the show
and if you don't see that momen?
What is behind that?
Yeah, that's such a great quest.
I wish I still saw that
momentum from companies.
I certainly see the momentum to
celebrate Pride Month and to put
up a rainbow logo and to maybe
donate a little bit to charity.
But when it comes to the legisle
session in our state and in
states all across the nation,
we are not seeing the corporate
activism like we used to.
And I think a major part of it unfortunately,
is the smackdown from Ron de
Santis on the Disney Corporatio.
In Florida that we saw a scaling back of
companies that are getting into this fray.
I mean we saw Target get bullied
out of their pride display in se
of the stores across the nation.
We need our companies to stand firm and
bold for LGBTQ rights not just in June,
but all year long and unfortunately we're
just not seeing it like we used.
Where can people go to kind of follow
along, become engaged and aware?
Yeah, you got to follow the
fairness campaign on social med,
of course, Facebook and Instagr,
but also fairness.org and
the ACLU of Kentucky.
Keep up with all that we're doig
all year round and especially
in the legislative session.
All right, Chris,
always a pleasure to have.
Thanks so much, Claude.
So much for stopping by.
So once again, just go to
fairness.org to keep track of
everything that's happening
locally all around Kentucky.