It’s been a rather eventful past two weeks here in Prince William County, VA. While our various House of Delegates and statewide candidates ramp up to the General Election in November, there have been two major victories on the local level here.
06/21 Prince William County Schools Hearing
For the last nine months, the Prince William County School Board has been wrestling with adding sexual orientation and gender identity to protected classes under the school system’s nondiscrimination policy. The School Board was originally supposed to vote on this back in September of 2016, but a group of far right-wing pundits and elected officials riled up a bunch of concerned parents regarding bathroom and locker room issues. It’s pretty much exactly how you think it is — irrational fear of boys posing as trans-women was drummed up and used as a tool to incite public outrage.
It came in the form of a mob of people filling the room all wearing red.
After a prolonged barrage of citizen comments (which were all skewed against the LGBT community because we were out-organized), the school board voted to postpone the vote to June of this year, also pending a case in the state regarding a similar policy change in Fairfax county.
This time around, we were ready.
Supporters of the amendment were asked to wear purple and a massive organizing campaign had been in the works for months. Above, you can see the stark difference in the school board room after just 9 months. Suddenly, you have a room full of love as opposed to a room full of fear.
The School Board passed the amendment, and now students have recourse for being bullied based on who they love and how they identify, as do faculty and staff. It was a historic day in our county, and I’ll always treasure being part of it.
06/27 Board of County Supervisors Public Hearing
Hundreds of people attended the Tuesday, June 27th, public hearing held by the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) a proposal to construct a mosque in the western end of the county.
The All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) had been hard at work on this project for years, and all of that work came to fruition on Tuesday night. An additional part of the proposal was a request by ADAMS to for the county allow the mosque to be connected to the area's public sewer system. The sewer connection was a point of contention as the proposed construction site is within the "rural crescent," an area that generally allows for septic systems only. After over 160 people spoke - both in favor and against the mosque and the sewer connection - during citizens time, the board eventually moved to vote.
While the board was unanimous on the mosque itself, the sewer connection narrowly passed on a 5-3 vote. It was another strong showing; a coalition of folks from all across the community and all walks of life: As a point of reference, there are only 5 mosques in our county, even though there are around 20,00 practicing Muslims.
None of those mosques are located on the western end of the county. Until now.
Our fellow Democrats had a strong showing on Tuesday night, many of which speaking during citizens time on behalf of both the mosque and the sewer connection.
Notably, School Board Members Diane Raulston and Justin Wilk spoke in favor of both, as did State Senator Jeremy McPike. After three years of lobbying the board, and over seven years of fundraising for the project, it appears that we’ve taken yet another step forward for our county, which has struggled with these sorts of issues for decades. We’ve finally woken up as a county: until we get justice for everyone, we don’t have justice for anyone.