(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) The Southern Poverty Law Center this week released its annual “Year in Hate and Extremism” guide, which placed parental rights groups on its hate map, labeling them as “anti-government,” and targeting the popular Moms for Liberty with its own “extremist page” on the SPLC website.
“Moms for Liberty is a far-right organization that engages in anti-student inclusion activities and self-identifies as part of the modern parental rights movement,” the SPLC pronounced. “The group grew out of opposition to public health regulations for COVID-19, opposes LGBTQ+ and racially inclusive school curriculum, and has advocated books bans.”
The SPLC lumped the popular Moms for Liberty with other “antigovernment groups” that are “part of the antidemocratic hard-right movement,” including “specific militia, sovereign citizens, constitutional sheriffs and conspiracy propagandist groups” that pose a threat to the country.
“They believe the federal government is tyrannical, and they traffic in conspiracy theories about an illegitimate government of leftist elites seeking a ‘New World Order,’” it ranted about moms from across the country who care about their kids and their community.
“Name-calling parents who want to be a part of their child’s education as ‘hate groups’ or ‘bigoted’ just further exposes what this battle is all about,” Moms for Liberty co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich said in an email to Headline USA.
The battle hinges on “Who fundamentally gets to decide what is taught to our kids in school – parents or government employees? We believe that parental rights do not stop at the classroom door and no amount of hate from groups like this is going to stop that,” the group’s co-founders wrote.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, flipped the script on the SPLC, calling it “a radical left-wing hate group,” and lauding Moms for Liberty as “phenomenal women – they are moms who are standing up for their kids,” he said on his podcast, reported the Daily Signal.
“They hate America. They hate conservatives. They hate the Constitution. They hate the Bill of Rights,” Cruz said of the SPLC. “They hate families. They hate moms. They hate dads. They hate anyone who stands up for this country. And I gotta say for the SPLC to go after Moms for Liberty is disgusting.”
The SPLC’s attack on parental rights groups extended beyond Moms for Liberty’s first organization, according to the Daily Signal. The SPLC also attacked:
- 230 chapters of Moms for Liberty
- No Left Turn in Education of Gladwyne, Pennsylvania
- 12 chapters of Parental Rights in Education
- Parents Against Critical Race Theory
- Parents Defending Education
- Virginia Moms for America
- Virginia Parents Involved in Education
- and state-based chapters of Parents involved in Education
The bizarre and unwarranted inclusion of parental rights groups as hate groups was predated by the SPLC’s staff demonstrating a significant bias against parental rights.
Maya Carey Henderson, a research analyst for the SPLC, lamented these parental rights groups as the offspring of segregation in an essay entitled, “The Wrongs of the ‘Parental Rights’ Movement,” published at State of Black America, which compared moms to historical hate groups “such groups as white Citizens’ Councils or ‘Uptown Klans,’ comprised mostly of middle- to upper-class white Southerners seeking to preserve their segregationist way of life.”
Carey, predictably, transitioned to describe today’s parental rights movement as KKK-styled racists seeking “separate and unequal vulnerability,” claiming that their “unifying interest is protecting only the rights of children and parents of the majority, namely those who are white, cisgender, and straight.”
Moms for Liberty co-founders Descovich and Justice dismissed such smears as flying in the face of reality.
“Two-thirds of Americans think the public education system is on the wrong track today. That is why our organization is devoted to empowering parents to be a part of their child’s public school education,” they told Headline USA.
“That is our fundamental goal, which began just two years ago when teacher’s unions locked students out of schools during the pandemic. Empowering parents continues to be our mission today and that has fueled our organization’s growth – like wildfire to now 45 states in the country.”
