Historians Denounce Controversial Moms for Liberty Group Ahead of Their Event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

The "parental rights" group has caused a lot of controversy around the country with book bans, among other issues

Philadelphia, PAPhoto byDan MallonUnsplash

Moms for Liberty, the controversial "parental rights" group, is coming to the Museum of American Revolution in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for their event featuring former President Donald Trump, presidential hopeful and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and other conservative speakers.

The event is called the 2023 Joyful Warriors National Summit and starts on June 30th and ends on July 2nd.

Moms for Liberty is best known for their attempts to ban books and limit conversations about race, gender ideology, and orientation in schools. Founded in Florida in 2021, Moms for Liberty was born out of opposition to COVID-19 mandates in schools and now claims 285 chapters across 45 states.

It switched to targeting diversity education and how LGBTQ issues are handled by schools, as part of a broader conservative movement that has accused schools of indoctrinating students around race, gender, and orientation.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has designated Moms for Liberty as an "anti-government extremist group." The SPLC has labeled quite a few "parental rights" groups in this manner due to their "anti-student-inclusion."

“It’s really looking at their overall narrative: that public educators and public schools are attempting to indoctrinate and sexualize children through this radical Marxist agenda,” Maya Henson Carey, a research analyst with SPLC's Intelligence Project said.

In one example flagged by the SPLC, Moms for Liberty said last year that “the K-12 cartel — also known as the national teachers union (NEA) — met and drafted a proposal to replace the word ‘mother’ with ‘birthing person.’” Describing the proposal as “insane,” Moms for Liberty said that “as the teachers union pushes an agenda focused on everything but educating our children, American parents are rising up, taking back our school districts and putting the focus back on educating our children.”

There are some Moms for Liberty groups that have ties to the Proud Boys, a far-right neo-fascist organization that engages in political violence. Recently, an Indiana chapter made national headlines for a quote it attributed to Hitler in its newsletter: “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.”

Ahead of the Philadelphia event, seven groups of historians have written letters to the Museum of the American Revolution and their members, denouncing Moms for Liberty.

The four-day sold-out event holds workshops for school board members, trains aspiring elected officials, and shows off other speakers who espouse far-right ideals. Second to Florida, Pennsylvania has the most members of Moms for Liberty living within the Commonwealth.

The museum has defended its decision to allow Moms for Liberty to have its event at its venue. They say they want to share diverse and inclusive stories about the country's history with as broad of an audience as possible.

Many museum staffers disagree with the decision made. They've argued that this isn't about differences of opinion. Moms for Liberty has encouraged the harassment of teachers and librarians.

“This organization consistently spreads harmful, hateful rhetoric about the LGBTQIA+ community, including popularizing the use of the term ‘groomer’ to refer to queer people and attacking the mere existence of trans youth,” read a statement from The Committee on LGBT History, the first historian affinity group to condemn the museum.

The Organization of American Historians, the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, and the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians published similar statements, encouraging the museum to reconsider.

The groups argued that Moms for Liberty works against the historians' mission of providing factual accounts of historical events. They worry that by letting the group have an event at its venue, the Museum of the American Revolution is lending legitimacy to Moms for Liberty.

The McNeil Center for Early American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania added discriminatory behavior should not be protected under the guise of free speech and academic freedom.

Though museum staffers don’t have to work that night if they feel unsafe, some LGBTQ workers have already expressed feeling that the museum doesn’t have their back.

A spokesperson for the museum said, “We welcome all visitors and pride ourselves on a museum experience that reflects our mission to uncover and share the stories of diverse people and complex events that sparked the ongoing American experiment in liberty, equality, and self-government."

Protests against Moms for Liberty are being planned throughout the entirety of the conference.