Rev. Dr. Stephanie Rutt is the founding minister of the Tree of Life Interfaith Temple in Amherst. She lives in Nashua.
Drizzling rain — the kind that can chill you to the bone — fell, and still, over 1,000 people showed up for the “Hands Off!” rally in Nashua.
What struck me most was how so many of the people I saw were old, and I mean at least as old as I am! One woman next to us, leaning on a cane, was, I’d say, in her 80s. Her friend close by held a sign, “Make America Kind Again.”
My husband, who for most of his life has preferred to remain unknown, made our signs and was eager to go. Having spent his time in the Navy working for the Naval Security Group, he’s watched, unbelieving, all that President Trump has been allowed to get away with, especially regarding classified documents and cozying up to Putin.
Now, he’s watching all he’s worked for steadily disappear as the democracy he’s long loved and served quickly dissolves into autocracy.
Maybe the reason most of us there were on the older side is that we know what can be lost. For most of our lives, we’ve lived in a society where the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution has held fast. There’s been respect for the separation of church and state. For example, right here in Nashua, where the Hindu Temple of New Hampshire and the Nashua Baptist Church are literally right next door to one another, the faithful in both communities have long worshiped in peace. Now, Hindu children may soon have to read the Bible in school, the very school their parents support with their tax dollars.
There used to be freedom of speech. Now we’re given strict rules as to which words we can use and not use if we want to stay in good standing with our new autocratic leader. Higher education, long the vanguard of academic inquiry, exploration and research, is now being held hostage and forced to comply — or else — to the new governmental narratives reframing historical events.
Loyalty is no longer to the Constitution. It’s to the new autocracy under Trump. So yes, we know what can be lost.
My sign said, “Hands Off DEI!”
Before the rise in diversity, equity and inclusion in our institutions, the stories of history were told largely by and for men, white men. For example, in high school in the 1960s, I learned intimate details about WWII, but never heard about Elizabeth Friedman, one of the first American cryptanalysts, who played a crucial role in breaking up Nazi spy rings. Nor did I hear about the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African American military aviators in the United States Armed Forces.
I remember watching the beginnings of space exploration on TV but never heard of the African American women engineers, most notably Katherine Johnson, who served behind the scenes. John Glenn would later credit her calculations as being essential to his mission. Having a southern heritage, I did hear rumors about something called the Underground Railroad but couldn’t have told you who Harriet Tubman was.
I heard about Albert Einstein but nothing about Marie Curie, a physicist, chemist and the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics. I learned all about the bravery and courage of those who dared to tame the western frontier but nothing about the Trail of Tears. And sometimes I wonder if my grandchildren will ever get to dive into the poetry of Walt Whitman or the novels of Virginia Woolf or Oscar Wilde because, well, you know, they weren’t heterosexual.
So, yes, we know what can be lost.
Sustaining a democracy is not for those seeking rigid, cookie-cutter, categories of belief and thought. It’s not for those who want to flatten gender roles and play with women as if they were one-dimensional paper dolls. It’s not for those who are uncomfortable passing others on the sidewalk who may not look like them, think like them, speak like them or love like them. No, democracy requires that all of us hold the often uncomfortable tension that can arise when we dare to embrace diversity in search of our common identity as Americans.
So, I rise today to stand tall, vocal and firm for all DEI before my words may be silenced.
To my younger women friends, in particular, I urge you to educate yourselves about Project 2025 and to read the “Handmaid’s Tale.” It, or a similar scenario, may be coming much quicker than any of us older women could have ever imagined. Don’t hide. Don’t think it can’t happen here. It can.
My prayer for you is that when you’re much older you too will still be able to stand out in the drizzling rain, leaning on your cane, and hold a sign with a message you believe in.