Private speech should stay private

(Editor's note: The following letter is in response to published reports of county Democratic Chair Leslie Huhn calling on Assemblyman Parker Space (R-Sussex) to resign after reports surfaced that Space had called Democratic Assembly candidate Kim Matteson the "b" word.)
Instead of putting out letters to the editor that make statements that she can't back up and that are in conflict with her fellow Democrats, Sussex County Democrat Chair Leslie Huhn should try reaching out to the members of her own party and get to the truth.
While I am in no way in agreement with the term used, most of us recognize that the informal speech all of us use privately, with family and friends, should be kept private and that it is a whole lot different from a public pronouncement. I don't remember the Chairwoman expressing outrage when U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, purposefully stood on a stage and gave a speech to hundreds that used the F-word and the B-word. There were no statements from the Sussex County Democrats about that.
After attending what was a non-political event, Republican Parker Space was having a conversation with his friend Jackie Stapel, the Executive Director of the Sussex County Democrats, and with Jennifer Hamilton, the Democrat candidate for State Senate. It was a private conversation that all of them agree was private.
It appears that one of the Chairwomen's operatives snuck up and recorded their private conversation. That isn't very ethical or moral and I understand it might even be illegal. The Chairwoman should be careful not to associate herself and her committee too much with this incident, as it has not yet been fully followed through.
Jerry Scanlan
Sussex County GOP Chairman