From soccer moms to parent activists: Moms for Liberty

[Freija]

Pointless as it may be, here's another viewpoint to assist with critical thinking.

Moms for Liberty (Wikipedia)

Moms for Liberty is an American political organization that advocates against school curriculums that mention LGBT rights, race and ethnicity, critical race theory, and discrimination, while multiple chapters have also campaigned to ban from school libraries books that address gender and sexuality. The group began by campaigning against COVID-19 protections in schools, including mask and vaccine mandates.

The group is influential within the Republican Party. Many of the group's chapters across the U.S. have forged close ties to right-wing extremist groups, including the Proud Boys and Three Percenters, as well as sovereign citizen, QAnon, and Christian nationalist organizations.  In 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that tracks extremists, termed Moms for Liberty a far-right extremist organization.

Moms for Liberty has been criticized for harassment, for deepening divisions among parents, for making students' education more difficult, and for having close ties to the Republican Party rather than being a genuine grassroots effort.

Moms for Liberty among conservative groups named 'extremist' by civil rights watchdog

The SPLC compares the group to pro-segregationist parent groups

The SPLC report compares Moms for Liberty and similar organizations of today to pro-segregationist parent groups that flourished in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education. That decision forced schools across the U.S. to integrate, but it also gave fire to a movement to undermine public education. The report names, as examples, the Mothers' League of Central High School and the "Cheerleaders" of New Orleans, which were established to resist inclusiveness at schools during that earlier era.

"That was hateful then, and it's hateful now," said Shannon Hiller, executive director of the Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) at Princeton University.

Moms for Liberty Uses Hitler Quote To ‘Scare’ Parents

The inclusion of the Hitler quote came as no surprise to some who have tracked the actions of the Hamilton County Moms for Liberty group. One anonymous Twitter account that has highlighted the group’s troubling actions pointed out on Thursday that the founding members were photographed in front of the Betsy Ross flag, which has been embraced by far-right extremists.

“I am not surprised by anything they do,” the anonymous account holder told VICE News, highlighting the fact that the group hired a private investigator to uncover their identity and published their name online.

“They are not original by any stretch of the imagination. They follow a playbook. I am surprised that chair Paige Miller issued a written apology. This is just another step in a trend where Moms for Liberty and other groups seem increasingly empowered to discriminate, attack, and display hate. My biggest worry is where does it stop?”

"Kids deserve better": Moms for Liberty chapter blasted for quoting Hitler in newsletter

Moms for Liberty is a far right dark money group that has become a leader in the conservative movement to promote the eradication of public schooling, target public school educators and push for bans on education on LGBTQ and racial history in favor of right-wing propaganda. Their messaging is couched in a movement for supposed "parents' rights," which has become code for legislative and far right activist-led attacks on Black people and LGBTQ people.

Nations’ Leading ‘Parental Rights’ Group Quotes Hitler In Newsletter

Moms For Liberty has also kept itself busy by attempting to get books banned from school libraries. I’m sure they had originally wanted to burn them like the Fuhrer they so idolize, but they seem to have settled (for now) for removing the books from shelves. They are attempting to empty libraries of all authors that are not white and cis in the name of “child safety,” and many of their leaders have been caught harassing teacher and librarians. They have even resorted to doxxing people, setting bounties on teachers, and have death threats in order to promote their twisted ideology.

Moms for Liberty listed as ‘anti-government’ group by extremism watchdog

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has listed the Republican-connected “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty as an “anti-government extremist” organization in its latest Year in Hate & Extremism report… The group soon expanded its campaigning remit to oppose teaching about racism and racist history and LGBTQ+-inclusive policies in public schools, and has since sought to land members and supporters on school board seats.

According to the SPLC report, the group has made its way by “intimidating and harassing teachers and school officials”, battling teachers’ unions, attacking corporations like Disney that are supportive of LGBTQ+ rights, and supporting and making use of laws like Florida’s so-called “don’t say gay” statute, which limits classroom discussion of gender and sexual identity… Moms for Liberty has expanded into a nationwide network of more than 200 branches, and the SPLC now lists each of these branches as an extremist group.

While the group has claimed to be non-partisan, from the beginning it has had close ties to the Republican party, especially in Florida, where it has won the backing of the rightwing governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis.