Gershon Signs Vandalized

Dozens of campaign signs for Perry Gershon, the Democratic candidate for New York’s First Congressional District, were vandalized last weekend. 

The words “Baby Killer” and “Gay Lover” were stenciled on as many as 50 signs between Center Moriches and Patchogue, Mr. Gershon’s campaign manager, Ali Dakich, said on Tuesday. 

“Hate-mongering has no place in America, especially in political campaigns,” Mr. Gershon said in a statement on Tuesday. “The conversation with voters should be about ideas for improving their lives. I am proud to stand with women in fighting for the right to let them choose what is best for their own bodies, and I am proud to stand with the L.G.B.T.Q. community in fighting for equality.”

“This is a nonpartisan, human issue,” he said. “Toning down incivility is the only constructive path forward for Long Island and the country.”

Word of the signs’ defacement came on the heels of a contentious debate between Mr. Gershon and Representative Lee Zeldin, who is seeking a third term in Congress, at Hampton Bays High School on Monday. Abortion was not among the topics debated, but one questioner asked the candidates’ position on President Trump’s proposal to narrow the definition of gender to male or female at birth and make that unchangeable later in life. 

Discrimination against any group is wrong, Mr. Gershon said at the debate. “A president pushing a discriminatory agenda sets the wrong tone for society.” 

Mr. Zeldin said that while no one should be discriminated against with respect to employment or housing, people’s sense of safety “includes not having a policy in place where a male could go into a female bathroom, or a female locker room, and say afterward that it was not a violation of any law because their internal sense of gender told them that they were a female when they went into a female locker room. I have a problem with that.”