The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has branded parental rights organization Moms for Liberty an anti-government “extremist group” on its 2022 map of “hate groups” in the United States.
The move drew sharp reactions from some Republican lawmakers and conservative figures, with Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) calling it “ludicrous” and “absurd.”
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) defended Moms for Liberty, saying its a group that “should be proud of the work they do for families and kids.” He described the SPLC as a “corrupt slush fund devoted to defamation.”
Moms for Liberty is a prominent organization at the forefront of the parental rights movement, specifically addressing concerns within the education system. The movement gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic as parents voiced apprehension about protocols imposed on children and left-wing ideological content in their education.
These concerns have been expressed through active participation in school board meetings.
The SPLC, currently facing a defamation lawsuit related to its hate map and accused of misrepresenting conservative and Christian organizations as “hard-right” or “extremist,” asserts that it monitors and publicizes the actions and negative impacts associated with specific groups listed on its hate map.
It states that these groups often share similar traditional values and beliefs, and among the map’s hate ideology categories, it includes Christian and Catholic groups alongside the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, among others.
The report characterizes parental rights advocates as extremists targeting schools for being inclusive.
“Schools, especially, have been on the receiving end of ramped-up and coordinated hard-right attacks, frequently through the guise of ‘parents’ rights’ groups,” the report states, adding that the groups emerged from a “right-wing backlash” to COVID-19 measures in schools.
“But they have grown into an anti-student inclusion movement that targets any inclusive curriculum that contains discussions of race, discrimination, and LGBTQ identities,” the report states.
“At the forefront of this mobilization is Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based group with vast connections to the GOP that this year the SPLC designated as an extremist group,” it continues. “They can be spotted at school board meetings across the country wearing shirts and carrying signs that declare, “We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT.”
Moms for Liberty Reject Designation
Moms for Liberty co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich rejected the SPLC’s hate map designation.“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,” they added.
In a previous interview with The Epoch Times, Justice expressed her belief that Marxists are “teaching our children in school that America is not a great country.”
She has questioned why parental rights are viewed as “such a threat” by left-wing groups. The answer, she asserted, is that advocacy for parents’ rights is standing in the way of the spread of communist ideologies, such as socialists’ rejection of the traditional family unit.
“We are standing in defense of liberty and freedom and against communism in America,” Justice said.
The SPLC report frames the push for parents to have a say in directing their children’s education as part of a kicked-up swarm of “conspiracy theories and racist tropes” such as that LGBT people are grooming children, leftists are working through schools and libraries to undermine traditional gender roles and push ideologies such as critical race theory, which is considered a racist, anti-white theory by conservatives.
“These ideas now circulate widely among influential right-wing figures and within the Republican Party, which lends them legitimacy and allows them to influence policy,” the report states.
The SPLC’s report fails to address the underlying reasons that led parents to voice their concerns during school board meetings and in other forums. These concerns primarily revolve around allegations of left-wing initiatives that aim to introduce sexually explicit material and promote far-left and LGBT ideologies within K–12 education.
Support for “parental rights” and “family values” are framed in the report as a smokescreen for fueling “right-wing hysteria and to make the world a less comfortable or safe place” for black and LGBT people.
“Far-right activists circulate lists of books they find objectionable on social media, spurring others to petition their own school board and libraries to ban books. The campaigns have become so charged and hate-filled that they have reportedly caused many librarians to leave their jobs, while others have been fired for refusing to take certain books off the shelves,” the report states.
The organization’s report mentions the controversial illustrated book “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, which contains explicit drawings of sex acts, as an example of a wrongly-maligned book that conservatives seek to ban. It describes the oft-banned book as “a memoir about adolescence by a non-binary author” and refers to other controversial books as exploring “sexuality and gender identity,” with no mention of their pornographic or age-inappropriate content.
In recent years, parents across the country have taken issue with topics such as LGBT sexuality, gender identity, and critical race theory being taught to young children. This has extended outside of campuses to events where drag queens read books to children or perform adult-oriented acts in front of them at family-aimed events.
Fueling concern among parents has also been the promotion of transgender identity and the encouragement of minor students to hide their gender identity from their parents and seek cross-sex treatments.
The SPLC report instead frames these movements as being motivated by hatred and Christian extremism.
Responses
In reaction to the SPLC designating Moms for Liberty as an extremist group, several prominent figures and organizations have voiced objections, with critics questioning the organization’s motives, methodology, and potential bias.Cruz dismissed the designation, calling it “absurd” and accusing the SPLC of focusing more on silencing parents advocating for their children’s education than “they care about a violent domestic terrorist among their own ranks.”
“The SPLC is a corrupt slush fund devoted to defamation. Groups like [Moms for Liberty] and [Defending Education] should be proud of the work they do for families and kids,” said Cotton.
Scott criticized the SPLC’s actions as “ludicrous,” saying the “radical Left continues to target parents who want the best for their kids. Now, going as far as grouping concerned parents and conservatives with the KKK.”
Christina Pushaw, Ron DeSantis Rapid Response director, defended Moms for Liberty, arguing that mothers who care about their children’s education should not be labeled as a hate group. She emphasized the support of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) for Moms for Liberty, saying he “will never back down!”
The Johnson County, Kansas, branch of Moms for Liberty shared a message asserting that the SPLC’s designation is confirmation that the “K–12 cartel” are afraid of everyday parents and the “truth.” They used the hashtag #k12cartel to refer to those who allegedly oppose parental involvement in education.
Founder of Parents Defending Education Nicki Neily raised concerns about the politicization of the SPLC’s branding of Moms for Liberty, saying that “opponents of the rule of law love to weaponize the SPLC’s bogus list” to discredit effective advocates. She argued that this strategy aims is a “dishonorable” ploy to silence voices, intimidate potential activists, and discourage donors, portraying it as a dishonorable ploy.
As an example of how the SPLC’s list can be politicized, Neily shared a video of Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) accusing the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom of being a hate group after the SPLC designated it as such.
In a post that appears to imply a flaw in the methodology of the SPLC hate map, FBI whistleblower Steve Friend, who has testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, highlighted the FBI Richmond division’s reliance on the SPLC in an intelligence report that categorized Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass as “Radical Traditional Catholics” prone to domestic violent extremism.
