Less Than a Week Before the Election, Ciattarelli Returns to Anti-LGBTQ Fear Mongering

GOP Candidate Claims State’s Inclusive Curriculum Causing Children to “Question Their Sexuality”

NEWARK, NJ — Extreme Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli drew headlines earlier this year when he attacked the state’s LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum, deliberately invoking the word “sodomy” and mischaracterizing the program. Now less than a week before Election Day, Ciattarelli is once again playing to the extreme fringe of the Republican Party by baselessly claiming that the new curriculum is causing children to question their own sexuality.

Speaking at a forum last week, Ciattarelli said:

(21:43) JC: “Thank you all the same. But again, this is the heartbreaking element to the story that Rosie tells. I will tell you as I’ve gone around the state, there have been a number of times because of the public school curriculum changes that we’re discussing here today that I will look to repeal, is I’ve heard parents, particularly mothers, say that a young child came home questioning their sexuality, questioning their gender. If that’s the consequence of what’s being taught, that should tell us there’s something terribly wrong with this curriculum. It is too young an age to comprehend this kind of subject matter.”

Video of the explosive comment is available here. 

“Just as he has this entire campaign since he embraced Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election, Jack Ciattarelli is again siding with extremists and making it clear that he has no business being elected in one of the most diverse and inclusive states in the country,” said NJDSC LGBTQ Caucus Chair Lauren Albrecht. “Ciattarelli’s latest anti-LGBTQ comments are right out of the 1950s and reflect a total ignorance of the lived experiences of people in the LGBTQ+community. Again and again, Jack Ciattarelli shows how wrong he is for New Jersey, and why it’s so important for everyone who rejects his brand of bigotry and extremism to re-elect Governor Murphy.”