OPINION:
As a Muslim who emigrated from the Middle East to southwest Virginia, I believe in the ideal of America as a haven for individuals who were oppressed and enforced to leave their home countries. It is therefore disenchanting to observe the authoritarian acts by some of our officials to dilute many faiths and beliefs in America.
By intervening in the school system and implementing laws and policies that cause conflicts with people’s faiths, the federal and local governments are creating an unsafe environment in schools. Those laws and rules are not only crossing the boundaries of religious faith, but they arealso defying those who believe in traditional family values in general.
The threat is hovering above the American family. On further assessment, it even affects the immigrant families as they arrive with their own traditional family beliefs. Loudon County schools in Northern Virginia is an example of failure for allowing a transgender student to enter a girl’s restroom and commit a sexual assault. The fall of a democratic system begins with a government that interferes with faith and a traditional lifestyle.
Virginia’s gubernatorial election last month opened the gates. We are now expressing our anger over this and rejecting the state’s attempt at parenting our children. Electing Glenn Youngkin and Winsome Sears as Virginia’s governor and lieutenant governor was a decision of Virginians to put the interests of families, schools and education ahead of political interests.
As long as I have lived in southwest Virginia, its conservative Southern hospitality and traditional values have created a warm connection and a welcoming feeling between me and it. The results of the recent election go beyond a victory for Youngkin and Sears. It is about pursuing goals that, in this country, can be achieved regardless of one’s race, color or ethnicity. As I have always said loudly to my friends, “That is why I love this country.”
SERWAN ZANGANA
Roanoke, Va.
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