Want to say “NO” to Mom’s for Liberty (and the presidential candidates coming to town seeking the group’s support)?
Tomorrow morning, Friday, June 30, POWER is organizing the first of the daily protests against the group Moms for Liberty in town for its annual “Joyful Warriors Summit.”
But first, ‘Moms for Liberty’ is a misnomer.
The organization began in Florida promoting disinformation and conspiracy theories about the COVID-19 pandemic and protesting COVID-19 protections in schools, including mask and vaccine mandates. Freedom to disregard public health and the needs of your more vulnerable neighbors?
But it has developed its project considerably since the pandemic. It now advocates against school curriculums and library collections that mention LGBT rights, race and ethnicity, critical race theory, and discrimination. Freedom to disregard your neighbors and the needs of public space for all?
Many of its chapters across the country 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. It’s part of the network of organizing by the extreme right. In 2023, the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that tracks extremists, labeled Moms for Liberty a far-right extremist organization.
Under the guise of parental rights – the reasonable sounding right of a parent to determine how one’s children are raised – the organization insists that school is a place where their children should not encounter any expectations of diversity, inclusion or respect. In effect, Moms for Liberty is about denying other people’s rights to be seen, heard, understood, cared for, or ultimately to exist. LBGTQ+ students in school districts that have been affected by Moms for Liberty, like Bucks Central, report that with teachers and administrators silenced, they have little defense from harassment and bullying.
Mom’s for Liberty claims public educational space must be free of lessons and literature that reference LGBTQ+ people / themes and struggles. In effect, they want to ban books and censor teachers and curricula. They want to turn back the clock to when queer folks were in the closet and ‘white out’ American history that is open about racial injustice. They say it’s for the children’s protection – to keep them from feeling uncomfortable in the face of any mention of sexual differences or from feeling guilty about white supremacy.
Mom’s for Liberty might more honestly be called “Conservative Parents Insisting their Children Can’t Be Exposed to Diverse Ideas or People.” Sort of like the company owners refusing to cover birth control in their group health insurance plan because it goes against their faith. Or the baker who runs a business but can’t serve, bake for or sell to a lesbian couple getting married.
Why don’t we want our schools and our society to prepare children for the bigger world they are growing up to live in?
Michael will be there because he’s helping to organize this protest! He hopes to be joined by other Old Firsters because OUR faith isn’t about fear, exclusion, fear, lies or metaphorically gated communities.
Participants will gather in LOVE Park at 8:30 am tomorrow, Friday, June 30, and then march singing to the protest site near the Downtown Marriott where the Moms for Liberty summit is being held.
Join us to stand up for ALL the people of our nation – difference, even disagreement is not a threat, but our promise, making us all better than we could be on our own…
