Moms for Liberty: Making Waves for Children
I’ve just returned from Washington D.C., where I attended the Moms for Liberty Summit. Former President Trump spoke. So did Tulsi Gabbard. Glenn Beck too.
But the real draw was the women and men who spoke of the retaliation they endured for protesting school boards that endanger the health and education of their children. Some were fired from jobs. Others were slammed on Social Media. One was assaulted in the streets. Still others were forced to relocate their families, upending normal.
Walking into the breakfast session the first morning, sitting at a table of these warriors, felt like entering a foreign country where you were surrounded by people of shared values, where you felt free to speak your heart, without fear of being canceled. Not everyone agreed on all issues, but all coalesced on the big agenda — the kids.
Moms for Liberty was started in 2021 by Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich with $500 and a mission to win parental rights in their Florida school district. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, they protested lockdowns, masks, mandates and school closings. Now, Moms for Liberty has grown to 130,000 members in 300 chapters in 48 states, Utah and Vermont the outliers. Local chapters choose their grassroots issues, and many are now working to keep males out of women’s sports, end mutilation of children in the name of gender ideology and remove porn from school libraries.
“A tyrannical government woke a sleeping giant,” said Justice. “If we care about freedom, if we care about liberty, if we care about parental rights, we have to fight. And no one fights harder for their kids than mothers. Time to fight like a mother.”
For their growing numbers and anti-Woke agenda, the media routinely refers to them as far-right fanatics. The Southern Law Poverty Center, a radical left institution, calls them extremists. The Brookings Institution says theirs is such a polarizing organization, with such extreme positions, that its long-term impact is dubious.
Against this backdrop of hate and misinformation, speakers came to the podium, one after another, to tell us why the time has come to brave the backlash.
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From the time she was elected to the Texas House of Reps in 2016, Shawn Thierry steered into law bills on maternal mortality, elderly protections and against human trafficking. A loyal Democrat, she voted against aggressive immigration measures and a ban on diversity programs on college campuses.
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But last year she gave a 12-minute speech on the floor explaining why she was voting yes on a bill — since signed by Gov. Greg Abbott — banning sex change surgeries and hormones for children. This year Dems spent $1 million to primary her. She lost in a runoff to Lauren Simmons, an LGBTQ+ organizer, 35% to 65%.
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In private, most colleagues in the Black Caucus agreed with her about the issue, but told her to just vote yes anyway. She asked them how they could vote to castrate black boys, and sterilize young girls, given their community’s history of abuse. “Just hold your nose,” came one reply. She asked them what they would do if lawmakers next wanted to cut off the feet of young children. Silence.
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To a roar from the audience, she announced she was leaving the Democrat Party for the party of “faith and freedom.” She had experienced firsthand “how the Left stifles thoughtful debate, silences dissent and demands blind allegiance to an ideology that is anti-family and anti-children. If you question, or disagree, they will cancel you. This is why so many former Democrats plan to vote Republican.”
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After a career as an elite gymnast and a degree from Stanford, Jennifer Sey went to work at Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco, in 1999. For 20 years, she rose through the ranks while raising her four children, promoted to chief marketing officer and then brand president. But in January 2022, Sey spoke out against the pandemic closure of K-12 schools. Strauss fired her. She wrote a book about the experience, Levi's Unbuttoned: The Woke Mob Took My Job But Gave Me My Voice.