What a shame. While our Senator, Steve Oroho, was in Trenton becoming the Minority Leader and making our district proud… Bill Winkler (writer for the Sussex County Watchdog) went rogue on his boss and published a series of delusional rants and lies that make Joe Biden seem coherent. I choose to believe that Senator Oroho wouldn’t approve of this childish behavior. Let’s address Mr. Winkler’s most recent embarrassment of a piece. Here are some crucial facts:
Nearly every school (if not every school) in New Jersey has the MANDATED transgender policy on the books, including the one in Hopatcong, that was voted for by the Watchdog’s (and the Democrats) preferred candidate in the Commissioner race. My school district was only in the public eye regarding the issue BECAUSE we took a stand and said NO to passing it.
We were told that our district could be held liable by lawsuits if we didn’t have a policy on the books. At the time, Governor Murphy was in the midst of slashing 3.6 million dollars of our state aid. We couldn’t afford to sue or be sued over the issue. We are stewards of the taxpayer.
Facing potential litigation, we changed the language in the policy to protect parental rights. The new policy passed 7-2.
Law trumps policy. What does this mean? It means that even if you don’t have a policy on something, the law remains and it must be followed.
The policy wasn’t a secret and wasn’t done at all during the “fearful” and “frightening” days of the pandemic. It was approved in February 2020 and the first positive case of COVID-19 in New Jersey came a month later, with the first Sussex County case coming even later than that. Again, another lie from Mr. Winkler. I think I would rather watch Rachel Maddow than read his blog. That’s not a compliment, Rachel.
Mr. Winkler mentions that we “opposed” and “ignored” President Trump’s position on transgenders in favor of Governor Murphy’s. We didn’t have a choice. If Mr. Winkler had even an elementary student’s understanding of the United States Constitution, he would know that the power of the states is greater than the power of the federal government. I guess he isn’t a conservative after all.
I explicitly stated that I disagreed with the policy and that if it wasn’t the law, I would have voted NO. The very same NJ Herald article states, “D’Agostino said he still disagrees with the July 2017 state law and that even with these modifications being made, “if it wasn’t the law, I would have voted no.”
I believe that our rights begin in our home, not in Trenton and certainly not in Washington, DC. Parental rights are sacrosanct. They should not end where the walls of a home begin. Parents should have a say over a school board and a school board should have say over the state. The way you raise your children should be up to you- not our teachers, not our administration, and it certainly shouldn’t be up to me. This is why our board has been planning for months to repeal the transgender policy (even though it’s merely symbolic and doesn’t change daily operations), once our new conservative board was seated, at our first action meeting (January 27th). Bill Winkler probably knows this and wants the vote to look reactionary to his poor excuse for journalism. He wants people to believe I’m afraid of him. I’m not.
By the way, why is a man who lives nearly two hours away (from me), in New Hope, Pennsylvania, meddling in Sussex County politics? Also, can we really trust a “journalist” who is paid by elected officials? Those are rhetorical questions. All in all, he sure seems pretty angry about my candidacy. I’ll take it as a compliment.