To the Editor:
Old Lyme will have a municipal election on November 7 and there’s an elephant in the room. It is the Republican Party. For years that party has conducted a well-organized, effective, national campaign to undo the progress our country has made over the decades in recognizing and protecting each citizen’s rights to equality, autonomy and freedom of thought.
I expect that most Old Lyme voters are appalled at the policies and positions advocated by today’s GOP in Washington and in state legislatures: rejection of women’s rights to bodily autonomy; intolerance for gender nonconformity; disregard of Black citizens’ civil rights; restrictions of minority voting rights; censorship in schools and libraries; manipulation of school curricula and history books; promotion of alternative realities; ardent support for candidates regardless of their criminal and unethical conduct; support for authoritarian government abroad and at home; erosion of support for Ukraine in its fight for the West; and the list goes on.
What’s that got to do with our election? I surely cannot say that everyone on the Republican Town Committee and each of its endorsed candidates share the views listed above. I can say, however, that the Republican agenda generally has infected the local party. Though there is little public expression of (or against) these views, they have been on vivid display recently in the attempts to impose personal viewpoints on the whole community by censoring books in our library and, in 2021, by the Board of Selectmen’s refusal to adopt a statement committing to oppose racism in Old Lyme.
These are scary times. On election day, please vote for the Democratic slate on Row A.
Sincerely,
Marisa Calvi-Rogers,
Old Lyme.