‘Moms for Liberty’ Kick, Drag, Bruise Three Kids with Rainbow Flag
This is a licensed Adobe Stock photo of a crying teenage girl in a wheelchair. This is not the 16-year-old girl in a wheelchair who police had to protect from staff violence at a Ron DeSantis campaign rally in South Carolina.
Including a 16-year-old girl in a wheelchair. Liberty for me but not for thee?
by James Finn
Violence at political events dates back to at least the days of the Brothers Gracchi of the late Roman Republic — when candidates’ supporters often slugged out their differences with fists, clubs, and knives. The U.S. has never been free of political violence, but former President Donald Trump kicked up the practice, often urging his supporters to commit violent acts in the public square and at Trump campaign rallies. Trump often says at rallies that he’d like to “punch protesters in the face,” and he’s even offered to pay the legal fees of supporters who commit violence at his urging.
It looks like people all across the Right are internalizing Trump’s violent values. Is this the new normal? Is violence against children our new political reality? Violence by mothers who claim to stand for liberty?
Confused? Here’s what’s going on:
Recently, at a Ron DeSantis presidential campaign rally in South Carolina, staff and attendees kicked, bruised, threw to the ground, and violently dragged three teenagers for the “crime” of holding up a rainbow flag to urge DeSantis to respect LGBTQ equality. Reportedly, some of the people who committed violence against the teens are members of Moms for Liberty.
Two of the Charlotte-area teens were 19 years old. The other was a 16-year-old girl in a wheelchair.
After observing the violence from the podium, DeSantis shouted at the kids, “We don’t want you indoctrinating our children! Leave our kids alone!”
More on his irrational comment in a minute, but can I just ask first … Are we ready yet for a wake-up moment as a nation? If you doubt the need, please keep reading.
Claire Jost and Will Sander, both 19 year olds from the Charlotte area, told Newsweek that Jost is queer and that they attended the rally with Sander’s 16-year-old sister to stand up for what they believe.
Jost says everything went fine at first.
She says the three teens mingled and spoke “congenially” with others in the crowd. But when they pulled out the rainbow flag, violence sparked “immediately.” She told reporters that she felt somebody tugging on her shoulder, and that she was then kicked, bruised, and physically dragged out of the venue while DeSantis supporters cheered.
Sander said he was kicked and “violently dragged down stairs,” which left him bruised and in serious pain.
Sander said staff tried to force his 16-year-old sister, who has asked not to be named, out of her wheelchair — until law enforcement intervened to protect her and escort her safely out of the building.
Newsweek has confirmed that Jost provided photos showing multiple bruises on her legs.
All three teens had tickets and reserved seats at the rally. None had refused to leave. They say nobody informed them that they were trespassing or made any reasonable request that they leave. Instead, the sight of the rainbow flag produced instant physical brutality from the crowd, from DeSantis staffers, and — believe it or not — from representatives of the anti-LGBTQ organization “Moms for Liberty,” according to media outlet Florida Politics.
What? Moms physically brutalized kids? In the name of freedom? How does that work?
Moms for Liberty don’t stand for freedom. They partner with violent groups to fight for tyranny.
If you follow LGBTQ issues even slightly, you’ve heard of Moms for Liberty, who claim to be a grassroots organization of concerned mothers who champion the rights of parents to have a voice in their children’s education.
What do Moms for Liberty mostly do?
Ban books from schools. They don’t want any children — their children or your children — reading about LGBTQ people or the harsh realities of racism/slavery/segregation in the United States. The “moms” also have a history of going after books about anti-semitism.
For example — and just sticking to South Carolina — Moms for Liberty activist Ivie Szalai recently succeeded in removing Bernard Malamud’s “The Fixer” from school shelves. The 1966 National Book Award and Pulitzer-winning novel set in Poland is about the anti-semitic “blood libel” conspiracy that Christians once spread.
According to the conspiracy, Jews sometimes kill Christian children to use their blood in Jewish religious rituals. This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: the blood libel conspiracy theory was always nonsense, rooted in bigotry, hatred, and fearmongering. Nonetheless, many Christians once took the conspiracy seriously, which led to pogroms and other atrocities against Jews in (mostly) eastern Europe as late as the early twentieth century — within living memory.
My late husband’s mother fled Poland in part because of violent antisemitism inspired by the blood libel.
Think about that, please.
“The Fixer” has elicited debate among some scholars, because Malamud based his novel on real-life accounts that some claim he misappropriated. But the “liberty” moms aren’t concerned about plagiarism. They admit they haven’t even read the novel. They say they want it gone because it’s on a list of books that contain profanity, violence, and discussion of racism — an action list the national “moms” send to local chapters.
That’s right: These “liberty” champions aren’t content to supervise their own children’s reading. They want to parent YOUR children.
They want to stop your kids from checking out library books about racism. They want to stop your kids from checking out books with “naughty” words. They want to stop your kids from learning that words can have powerful, violent consequences … like genocide.
As an aside and in the spirit of getting real, when my kid was 14, he and all his friends swore like sailors in two languages. (We lived in Montreal, and kids there switch effortlessly between French and English.) I don’t think they realized I often overheard their salty language, but a few swear words hardly shocked me. I’m fully aware, as are most parents, that teenagers use strong language among themselves almost universally. We’re aware that no harm will come to them from reading the same “profanity” in a novel that they hear countless times a day from their peers in middle school and high school corridors.
The silly issue of profanities aside, the books Moms for Liberty mostly work to strip from libary shelves are about LGBTQ people and issues. The “moms” frequently besiege school board meetings calling LGBTQ topics “filth” that your children need protecting from.
But the moms who say they love freedom don’t stop there.
They partner with groups that routinely terrorize or threaten LGBTQ people with violence and firearms. Some of those groups are linked to the use of Molotov cocktails.
I’m not exaggerating for effect. I’ve written about bakeries in Chicago and Tulsa that were firebombed over family-friendly drag queen events they sponsored. I interviewed the owner of the Tulsa shop shortly after she narrowly escaped losing her business to arson.
According to recent reporting in Vice News, “Moms for Liberty chapters have forged close relationships with far-right extremist groups” like the Proud Boys, “the AK-47-worshiping Rod of Iron Ministries church in Pennsylvania,” Q-Anon conspiracists, and various extremist Christian Nationalist groups and other groups renowned for white supremacy, antisemitism, and above all, violence against LGBTQ people.
The same story claims that Moms for Liberty members don’t stop with associating with violent groups, reporting that the “moms” are often violent themselves:
In one instance, Moms for Liberty members in Orange County, Florida harassed a mother who opposed censoring LGBTQ books. The group posted her and her children’s photos on many social media platforms, identifying her by name and falsely claiming her children are at risk because she’s a pedophile. Members of the group showed up at public meetings and accused her of reading pornography to her four year old.
“I now fear for my life, and the lives of my four children,” the mother wrote in a statement to police asking for protection from the liberty-loving moms.
Just a few weeks ago, in Charleston, a Moms for Liberty member threatened to show up with a gun at a teacher’s house if the teacher came out to students as transgender.
These claims certainly track with Florida Politics observing that Moms for Liberty members at that South Carolina rally violently attacked three teenagers.
Can we as a nation face up to this extremist hatred and bigotry, please?
Those three teenagers showed up at a Ron DeSantis rally to ask for something very basic — respect and common human decency. They held up a rainbow flag to ask DeSantis and his followers to respect what it stands for — universal love, inclusion, and acceptance.
They held up the rainbow to ask for an end to hatred that dehumanizes queer teenagers.
In response, they were brutalized. Police had to protect a kid in a wheelchair from irrational hatred and violence — while Ron DeSantis egged the crowd on with even more irrational hatred.
“Leave our kids alone!” he shouted, apparently not recognizing the extreme irony of shouting bigoted hatred at real-life kids.
Some teenagers are transgender. Some teenagers are gay. LGBTQ kids have the right to be nurtured, to be supported, to learn and grow in safety and security.
What does it say about us as a nation that when kids who stand up for those rights — for that decency — mothers who claim to stand for liberty kick them, drag them, and bruise them?
Moms for Liberty, I say this to you: We queer people exist. We have the same claim to the pursuit of happiness as you do. We have the same right to read about ourselves and to raise our children as you do.
Trying to force us back into the closet? Trying to make us disappear from the public stage? That’s NOT advocating for liberty. It’s advocating for tyranny.
And if you have to brutalize children to get your point across, I suggest you think very carefully about the difference between liberty and tyranny. But if you can’t distinguish between the two, I ask the American public to assist you. Because this — this hatred and violence — is not who we aspire to be as a nation.