Inflammatory statements made on social media platform Gab
After being condemned for a number of hateful, homophobic and anti-LGBTQ social media posts, Hamilton Township Board of Education (BOE) candidate Nicholas Ferrara has dropped out of the race.
“In light of recent events, I will be dropping out from the Hamilton Twp. school board race,” Ferrara said on Facebook. “Best of luck to the other candidates.”
The inflammatory statements made on the right-winged social media platform Gab resurfaced last week. Condemning his words, members of the community began to second guess his ability to make impactful school-based decisions in New Jersey’s ninth-largest municipality.
In a Jan. 14 post, Ferrara claimed to be “all for the execution of the marxist/communists Jews,” who he referred to as “fake Jew” that belong to the “synagogue of satan fu**ers.” In another post, he called someone the F slur and told them to “go choke on a bag of d*cks.”
He stated, “This is our future, and I will be the judge, jury, and executioner.”
Local officials have spoken out against these hateful statements. Hamilton Mayor Jeff Martin called the comments “vile and disgusting.”
“Hate has no home anywhere but especially not here in Hamilton — home to so many people from different religions, living in harmony with their neighbors,” Martin said. “No one with such hate should serve in any elected capacity.”
Ferrara was running on a slate with Stacy Byrne and Monica Quaste in an 11-person multi-seat election. The current board members are calling for his running mates to follow Ferrara and drop the race.
“We agree with Mr. Ferrara’s decision to remove himself from the race for a board seat because such hateful rhetoric is unbecoming and disqualifying for a candidate to serve a school community. We call on Ms. Byrne and Ms. Quaste to do the same,” Susan Lombardo and Sue Ferrara (no relation to Nicholas Ferrara) said in a public statement.
Despite the urge, both Byrne and Quaste told NJ.com that they plan to stay in the race.
“Our crime was out of ignorance not malice,” Quaste said in an email to NJ Advance Media, for both candidates. “We are parents not politicians and we learned an important lesson via this process. We rebuked Nick’s ideology and asked him to remove himself and he did.”
