By McKenna Horsley
Kentucky Lantern
FRANKFORT — About three dozen protestors rallied outside the Kentucky Capitol Annex Monday to call on lawmakers to support food and health care assistance for low-wage workers and people in poverty.
The “Moral Monday” protest was part of events held across 16 states by Repairers of the Breach, a national organization that focuses on social justice.
In Frankfort, those who attended the protest held signs focusing on Kentuckians who are at risk of losing Medicaid coverage and SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, benefits as a result of the Republican-backed spending bill approved by Congress earlier this year.
Speakers included faith leaders from around Kentucky. At the end of the event, the protestors dropped off letters to state lawmakers and planned to follow up with emails and phone calls.
While legislators are not currently meeting, the Kentucky General Assembly will reconvene in January. Lawmakers must then decide the next two-year state budget, including how to fund various programs and resources.
Sandra Scott, a leader with VOCAL-KY, said she and others attended the rally to raise awareness about the cuts to SNAP and Medicaid.
“We are all equal. Let them walk a day in our shoes and see how much they keep cutting all these benefits that are helping to protect us,” Scott said of politicians who supported the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Pastor Rich Gianzero, the incoming executive director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, said, “We have an unjust and unrighteous situation going on in the country right now and in the Commonwealth.”
Asked what kind of message he hoped lawmakers took away from the protest, Gianzero said they should stop “the obsession with the culture wars” and focus on solutions to help people who are experiencing poverty in Kentucky.
“For so many legislators here in the Capitol who go to church or will quote a Bible — and in January, they’re going to quote Martin Luther King Jr. — and I’m asking myself and asking them to start doing the things that Jesus of Nazareth and Martin Luther King Jr. talked about,” Gianzero said. “Take action. Be about something.”
Gianzero encouraged Kentuckians to “pay attention” to elected officials at the state and local levels “and speak out if you are troubled or bothered by different things you’re seeing or hearing.”
This story first appeared at the Kentucky Lantern, a part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. It appears here under Creative Commons license.