JUNE 30, 2023:
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, are scheduled to speak at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty. The two-year-old group has fiercely opposed instruction related to race and gender identity in the nation’s classrooms and has quickly become a force in conservative politics by advocating for “parental rights” in education. But Moms for Liberty also has been labeled as “extremist” by an anti-hate watchdog group for allegedly harassing community members, advancing anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation and fighting to scrub diverse and inclusive material from lesson plans.
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PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the main rivals for the Republican presidential nomination, are scheduled to speak Friday (June 30, 2023) 0at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a two-year-old group that has fiercely opposed instruction related to race and gender identity in the nation’s classroom.
The group, which has quickly become a force in conservative politics, advocates “parental rights” in education, but an anti-hate watchdog has labeled it “extremist” for allegedly harassing community members, advancing anti-LGBTQ+ misinformation and fighting to scrub diverse and inclusive material from lesson plans.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis, also are slated to address the group Friday at the downtown Philadelphia hotel hosting the conference. Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are set to give remarks on Saturday.
Their attendance underscores the influence of a group that didn’t exist two years ago. Since then, it has made connections with powerful GOP organizations, politicians and donors to become a major player in 2024.
The group has transformed from three Florida moms opposing COVID mandates in 2021 to claiming 285 chapters across 45 states. Along the way, it has found a close ally in DeSantis, who was presented with a “liberty sword” at the group’s first annual meeting last year and has signed multiple bills that Moms for Liberty supported.
Beyond remarks from the candidates and other speakers, the summit will feature strategy sessions on such topics as “protecting kids from gender ideology” and “comprehensive sex education: sex ed or sexualization.”
Parent activists and LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations have said they plan to protest outside the conference, citing the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation of the group as an “anti-government extremist” organization.
Others mentioned recent incidents, including an Indiana Moms for Liberty chapter publishing an Adolf Hitler quote in its newsletter before apologizing and removing it, and a Tennessee chapter complaining about lessons on Black civil rights figures Martin Luther King Jr. and Ruby Bridges.
Several historical associations, state senators, activists and employees at Philadelphia’s Museum of the American Revolution pleaded unsuccessfully with the museum to cancel a welcome event for the conference planned for Thursday night.
“The very history that we’re presenting within the walls of the museum is a more diverse and therefore more accurate telling of history,” said Trish Norman, an assistant curator at the museum who protested the event. “And Moms for Liberty is notorious for erasing LGBTQ voices and Black voices from history.”
The museum told the AP that “because fostering understanding within a democratic society is so central to our mission, rejecting visitors on the basis of ideology would in fact be antithetical to our purpose.”
Several groups were set to rally against the meeting in downtown Philadelphia on Friday. Among them was People for the American Way’s “Grandparents for Truth” campaign, which the organization says mobilizes grandparents and other supporters “who are fighting for the next generation’s freedom to learn.”
One such grandparent, Maureen Carreño, said she wasn’t taught a diverse history as a child and wants something different for her five grandkids.
“I would hope that we teach the totality of history. And yes, it might make you feel a little bad or sad or something, but that’s part of history,” she said.
Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice said the protesters “obviously don’t know very much about our organization,” and if they wanted to, “they could have come to the summit instead of standing on the street.”
Though Moms for Liberty says it is nonpartisan, it has largely drawn conservative support. The group also has fought to elect conservative candidates to school boards around the country.
While the group’s status as a 501(c)4 nonprofit means it doesn’t have to disclose its funders, its public donors include conservative powerhouses such as the Heritage Foundation and the Leadership Institute, a national political training organization.
Patriot Mobile, a far-right Christian cellphone company paying to sponsor Trump’s remarks at the conference, has a PAC that has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in an effort to take charge of Texas school boards.
Mom for Liberty’s Florida-based PAC also has received a $50,000 donation from Julie Fancelli, a Republican donor whose family owns Publix grocery stores and who helped fund Trump’s Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally, according to House Jan. 6 committee findings. Fancelli didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running in the Democratic presidential primary, had been scheduled to speak at the group’s summit, but his “campaign told us his schedule changed,” Justice said.
Kennedy’s press team said he dropped out “for family reasons.” Hours later, Kennedy said during a town hall with NewsNation that he “made a mistake by accepting that invitation” and that once he learned of Moms for Liberty’s positions on LGBTQ+ issues, he “declined to go.”
JUNE 12, 2023:
NEW YORK (AP) — At least four Republican presidential candidates are scheduled to travel to Philadelphia later this month to speak at the annual gathering of Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based nonprofit that didn’t exist in 2020 but that has become a power player in conservative politics ahead of the 2024 elections. Former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy will speak at the event. The group has been at the forefront of the conservative movement targeting books that reference race and gender identity, and electing right-wing candidates to local school boards nationwide.
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NEW YORK (AP) — To its members, it’s a grassroots army of “joyful warriors” who “don’t co-parent with the government.”
To anti-hate researchers, it’s a well-connected extremist group that attacks inclusion in schools.
And to Republicans vying for the presidency, it has become a potential key partner in the fight for the 2024 nomination.
Moms for Liberty didn’t exist during the last presidential campaign, but the Florida-based nonprofit that champions “ parental rights ” in education has rapidly become a major player for 2024, boosted in part by GOP operatives, politicians and donors.
The group that has been at the forefront of the conservative movement targeting books that reference race and gender identity and electing right-wing candidates to local school boards nationwide is hosting one of the next major gatherings for Republican presidential primary contenders. At least four are listed as speakers at the Moms for Liberty annual summit in Philadelphia later this month.
Former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and biotech entrepreneur and “anti-woke” activist Vivek Ramaswamy have announced they will speak at the meeting at the end of June.
The group said it is in talks to bring others to the conference, including Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a fringe Democrat known for pushing anti-vaccine conspiracy theories.
The high interest in the event underscores how fights surrounding gender and race have become core issues for Republican voters. It also spotlights Republicans’ eagerness to embrace a group that has drawn backlash for spreading anti-LGBTQ+ ideas and stripping libraries and classrooms of diverse material.
The group was founded in 2021 by Tiffany Justice, Tina Descovich and Bridget Ziegler, all current and former school board members in Florida who were unhappy with student mask and quarantine policies during the pandemic.
In two years, the organization has ballooned to 285 chapters across 44 states, Justice said. The group claims 120,000 active members.
It has expanded its activism in local school districts to target books it says are inappropriate or “anti-American,” ban instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity, require teachers to disclose students’ pronouns to parents, and remove diversity, equity and inclusion programs from schools.
The group also has sought to elect like-minded candidates to school boards. In 2022, just over half the 500 candidates it endorsed for school boards nationwide won their races, Justice said.
Moms for Liberty pitches itself as a nonpartisan, grassroots effort started by passionate parents who call themselves “joyful warriors.” Yet the group’s close ties to Republican organizations, donors and politicians raise questions about partisanship and doubts over how grassroots it really is.
Co-founder Ziegler, who stepped down from the board in late 2021 but remains supportive of the group, is married to the chairman of the Florida Republican Party. Still a school board member in Sarasota County, she also is a director at the Leadership Institute, a conservative organization that regularly trains Moms for Liberty members.
Marie Rogerson, who took Ziegler’s place on the Moms for Liberty board, is an experienced political strategist who had previously managed the 2018 campaign of Florida state Rep. Randy Fine, a Republican.
The group also has quickly gained a close ally in DeSantis. In 2021, he signed Florida’s “Parents Bill of Rights,” which identified parents’ rights to direct their kids’ education and health care and was used to fight local student mask mandates. In 2022, he signed a law barring instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through the third grade, a ban opponents had labeled the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and which has since been extended through 12th grade. Moms for Liberty had loudly advocated both pieces of legislation.
Ziegler appeared behind DeSantis in photographs of the latter bill’s signing ceremony. When the group held its inaugural summit in Tampa last year, it hosted speeches by DeSantis and his wife, Casey, presenting the governor with a “liberty sword.”
And though the group is a 501(c)4 nonprofit that doesn’t have to disclose its donors, there are other glimpses of how powerful Republicans have helped fuel its rise.
Its summit sponsors, which paid tens of thousands of dollars for those slots, include the Leadership Institute, the conservative Heritage Foundation and Patriot Mobile, a far-right Christian cellphone company whose PAC has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in an effort to take over Texas school boards.
Maurice Cunningham, a former political science professor at the University of Massachusetts-Boston who has tracked Moms for Liberty’s growth and relationships, said its ability to draw so many top Republican candidates to its second annual summit is a testament to its establishment support.
“Yes, there are certainly moms that live in their communities and so forth who are active,” Cunningham said. “But this is a top down, centrally controlled operation with big-money people at the top and political professionals working for them.”
Justice said the group’s work with conservative organizations and DeSantis shows they take interest in the group’s cause, but doesn’t mean it isn’t grassroots.
Even as Moms for Liberty has aligned with establishment Republicans, researchers say its activism is part of a new wave of far-right anti-student inclusion efforts around the country.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate and extremism around the country, designated Moms for Liberty as an “anti-government extremist” group in its annual report released last week, along with 11 other groups it said use parents’ rights as a vehicle to attack public education and make schools less welcoming for minority and LGBTQ+ students.
The label comes after some of the group’s leaders and chapter chairs have been accused of harassing community members and amplifying false claims related to gender controversies.
Justice said calling Moms for Liberty’s activities extremist is “alarming” and that the group’s efforts to fund and endorse school board races show it is not anti-government.
She said the group removes chapter chairs who break its code of conduct and that it has members and leaders who are gay, including one member of its national leadership team.
A growing coalition of local organizations that promote inclusivity in education has begun to mobilize against Moms for Liberty and are petitioning Marriott to stop the upcoming conference. Defense of Democracy, a New York organization founded in direct opposition to Moms for Liberty, plans to bring members to Philadelphia to protest in person.
“They’re so loud and so aggressive that people are kind of scared into silence,” Defense of Democracy founder Karen Svoboda said of Moms for Liberty. “You know, if you see bigotry and homophobia, there is a civic responsibility to speak out against it.”
Moms for Liberty, in turn, said it will increase security for its meeting. Marriott hasn’t responded to the petition, and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “extremist” designation hasn’t deterred any Republican candidate who plans to speak.
Haley responded by tweeting, “If @Moms4Liberty is a ‘hate group,’ add me to the list.” Ramaswamy went onstage for a Thursday town hall with Justice and tweeted that SPLC stands for “Selling Political Lies to Corporations.”
Those responses are unsurprising to Cunningham, who said in today’s climate, the “extremist” label is “almost a badge of honor” within the GOP.
Moms for Liberty, for its part, is fundraising off it. After the SPLC report was public, Justice said the group quickly raised $45,000, an amount a larger donor has agreed to match.
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