Arena’s Campaign Against Prop 1 Would Set Women in New York Back
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
“Save Girls Sports,” shout Gina Arena’s state Senate lawn signs, strategically placed around Senate District 40. And yet they would be more appropriate enveloped in clouds, revealing them for the smokescreen they truly are.
The state legislature amended our Human Rights Laws in 2019! They include gender identity as a protected class. Have we been saving girls sports since 2019?
You see, New York already offers protections allowing high school athletes to choose which teams align with their gender identity. Arena is creating a solution in search of a problem. In a recent interview, when asked whether she could provide examples of transgender students seeking to play on a school sports team, Arena responded she had not heard of anything yet. That would be five years of no examples.
Her position is a thinly veiled, cynical example of fear mongering to scare supporters into both voting for her in the upcoming election against state Sen. Pete Harckham and against the Equal Rights Amendment (Proposition 1). Sen. Harckham believes in these common-sense civil rights protections all New Yorkers deserve.
What Arena is really doing is campaigning against abortion rights and reproductive health care, something New Yorkers support by huge margins. Prop 1 closes loopholes in the state constitution to make sure New Yorkers won’t be discriminated against. It includes access to reproductive health care, protects older citizens, people with disabilities and the LGBTQ community.
Not only is Pete Harckham a champion of women’s reproductive rights, but he’s also been a huge supporter of climate protections and helped to pass some of the toughest climate laws in the nation. He’s increased funding for law enforcement and many other initiatives that have helped make the Hudson Valley cleaner, safer and cheaper. He has been an exemplary public servant. A vote for Gina Arena is a vote against equal rights and a woman’s right to choose.
It would be a mistake to choose anyone other than Pete Harckham and to oppose Prop 1. It’s the easiest decision we can make this election season.
Alan Levy
Brewster
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