Moms for Liberty, a conservative extremist organization, is under fire for censorship of LGBT, racial, and gender ideological themes in books within American libraries and schools.
Moms for Liberty claims that LGBTQ and racial topics are propaganda and are being used as a means to indoctrinate children. Adopting the slogan, “we do not co-parent with the government”, their anti-government involvement in education perspective goes so far as to think a Department of Education is unnecessary.
The organization has been responsible for the massive spike in book bans across schools in the United States. With 285 chapters across 45 states, their harmful ideologies are spreading like wildfire
The organization was founded in 2021 by Bridget Ziegler, Tina Descovich, and Tiffany Justice, all of whom were former board members for the state of Florida. According to the official Moms For Liberty website, their mission is to, “fight for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”
Moms for Liberty wants to hide under the guise of parental rights so they can spew their hateful ideologies onto the next generation without backlash. This organization disagrees with culturally responsive teaching, confusing it with the teaching of critical race theory, also known as CRT, which describes the inner weavings between race and politics. In reality, culturally responsive teaching allows cross-culture experiences in the classroom leading to students being more inclusive and open-minded.
The official Moms for Liberty X (formerly Twitter) account is filled with various, offensive comments, somecomments some of those toward the LGBTQ community. One tweet by Tina Descovich, a cofounder of the organization took a jab at gender-neutral pronouns stating, “My line in the sand is calling a singular human ‘they/them.’ Go ahead and call me mean names. I can take it.”
The organization holds a firm belief that teaching about or reading stories with LGBT themes is an attempt to sexualize children, even if it’s as simple as a character having two moms. According to the Moms for Liberty website, “Twitter and Reddit are censoring the word groomer to describe adults who talk to children about gender switching and sexuality. What else are we supposed to call them?” Not only is this incredibly inaccurate and insulting, it’s a harmful narrative being spread about the LGBT community.
Moms for Liberty is not just banning books that they deem inappropriate but they’re also banning books that do not align with their personal ideals or values such as LGBT themes being too mature for children and anti-government beliefs. This is where they go wrong. It is wrongful to curate a children’s library in alliance with their agenda of excluding certain communities simply because they don’t like them. Kids may be able to find solace or representation between the pages of those books which is critical to their developing minds.
As this conservative group is against CRT, books describing racism are often banned despite having nothing to do with racism. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, “a Tennessee chapter of Moms for Liberty the first to file a complaint under the state’s new anti-CRT bill. The chapter took issue with a book by Ruby Bridges on her experiences integrating a school and also one on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., which they called, “Anti-American, Anti-White, and Anti-Mexican.” The 11-page complaint was made by Robin Steenman from Williamson County who believes America focuses too much on the negative history instead of “highlighting the positive achievements, like unity and the overall improvement of the country.” In response, Eliot Mitchell, Williamson County School Board states that the complaint is “misguided” and teaching racism in school is not implying “that one particular race is intrinsically racist.” Angela Mosley, a reading teacher in Williamson states, “The bottom line is, we’re teaching facts, and how anyone internalizes those facts … we don’t have any control of that.”
This is a huge problem because the censorship of racism and the average Black experience specifically in the South past is highly dangerous as it creates ignorant and prejudiced adults later on.
While libraries do not need to offer overly explicit content in books, it’s okay for some of it to make it onto the shelves specifically with teenagers. Some topics serve educational purposes for teenagers. A book with teenage content marketed to teenagers can be relatable. Why should they be denied that?
Moms for Liberty claims that these topics are too mature for children and that these inclusive ideologies and themes are being forced upon them. Moms for Liberty and their followers believe that parents should take control of their education and monitor the content they consume. Sheltering kids about real-life issues is not going to help them in the long run. Excessive parent involvement in school creates doubts about the ability of the teacher to do their job. Teaching kids about the differences between people and inclusivity will create more compassionate and understanding human beings.
These book bans are more than inappropriate content and parents’ rights, they are erasing history. Some books on the banned list do not even contain sexual content but racial content. To ban a book about racism or important history is unnecessary censorship.
