Source: The Desert Sun
During Saturday's ceremony, veterans and officials celebrated this milestone, while also criticizing a Trump Administration policy, effective this month, that effectively bars transgender people from joining the military. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed such a bill in 2004. Nearly 15 years later, State Assemblyman Eduardo Garcia tried again, authoring another bill that created the state designation. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill, A.B. 2439, in August 2018.
Garcia called the designation “a long-overdue recognition.”
“It’s a way for us to make a wrong right in our nation’s history,” Garcia said.
Among the elected officials at the ceremony were Congressman Mark Takano, Assemblyman Chad Mayes and Cathedral City Mayor Mark Carnevale. Local philanthropist Harold Matzner provided funding for the ceremony
The memorial “stands tall, even as others try to knock us down,” he said. “It is built to outlast discrimination against the LGBT community. It is designed to demand inclusiveness.”
