Moms for Liberty reveal who they really are

This is not just a national story – Pennsylvania is near the top of Mom’s national membership list and it’s spawned numerous subgroups around the greater Philly area that have as their goal the dumbing down of public education, all in the name of God and patriotism.

WELL, WELL, WELL.

So much for claiming to be “non-political,” as the right-wing Christian Nationalist group Moms for Liberty has tried to claim while trying to take over school boards across the country and turn them into training grounds for new generations of see no evil, hear no evil super patriots.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the news, Moms is coming to Philly this month. It is holding its national meeting in the heart of a community long associated with racial tolerance and the birth of liberty.

And, it’s keynote speaker is…..Donald Trump. Yep, the soon-to-be-indicted disgrace of a president who fomented an assault on our nation’s Capitol. Oh, and it’s not just Trump. Ron DeSantis will be there, as will Nikki Haley.

If you think this is some national group not worth paying attention to, you would be wrong. There is a chapter in Chester County, and other counties around the area. But it’s not just Moms you need to be aware of. The group has spawned other groups that are Moms in disguise.

One of them, Back to Basics West Chester, is running a slate of five candidates this Fall, all under the Republican banner.

On its web site it lays out what it claims to be:

“The vision of Back to Basics West Chester is to bring balance back to the school board in the West Chester Area School District by electing board members who closely align with the ethnic and social demographics of our district, and who also:

·    are parents of school age children;

·    represent a variety of political ideologies, ranging from conservative to liberal, with a majority of board members “in the middle”;

·    focus on academic excellence above all else.”

If you just go by what the group put out during the primary, you might be tempted to think “well, that doesn’t sound so bad.”

Except, you won’t find a liberal among them. You won’t find a majority “in the middle.” And you won’t find them focusing on “academic excellence above all else.” Back to Basics is another Moms Trojan Horse.

You won’t see them publicly espousing the more radical positions of Moms. In fact, some of them went back and scrubbed their social media. But, as I’ve pointed out in this space before, they can’t scrub the minutes of school board meetings and other public meetings where they have shown their true colors. And, their leadership has some very direct ties to Moms.

If you want to look more into Moms, any surprise you might have had about Trump heading up their speakers list this month probably will go away.

HERE IS A sampling:

“Over the course of the last several decades the education system and the school curriculum has declined and our schools have become unsafe.

“From comprehensive sex education to revisionist history and dangerous and suspect theories on race, our children are being indoctrinated in our public schools instead of learning the basics of a classical liberal arts education, including reading, writing, and traditional math.

“This is largely due to the influence of radical Marxist agendas of national and state level teachers’ unions and Boards of Education, and state and national associations and lobby groups, like the National School Board Association and the Superintendent’s Association.” – from the Mom’s web site.

“These (Mom’s) resources will open your eyes to the obscene and pornographic-style materials that are sexualizing children in our schools, including K-12.  The books in your school resource center will shock you, and they need to be exposed to your school board and community.  In addition, you can inform their school district in writing if they do not wish their child to participate in the sex ed lessons at school.” – Mom’s web site

“Parents have had to confront the proliferation in our schools of indoctrination thanks to liberal ideology. We find many curricula dominated by critical race theory, which seeks to recast American history and contemporary society as inherently and perpetually racist. We read of other textbooks and teachers who engage in LGBT advocacy as early as kindergarten, undermining core religious values of so many households. In some places, schools have pitted themselves against parents about children’s welfare, with laws seeking to empower educators against mothers and fathers.” – Mom’s Facebook page

I wrote at some lengths about Back to Basics a few weeks ago so I won’t rehash all of that here. But, the announcement that Moms for Liberty, the parent group of all these other far-right groups, is bringing Trump etal to Philly drops a veil that most people saw through, but still was there.

Moms for Liberty, and all of its subsets, is a group that wants to teach a white-washed version of American history, absence references to the slave trade, slavery itself, Jim Crow lynchings and any suggestion that today’s continued racial strife is rooted deep in the nation’s history. They don’t want their children (and by extension all children) to know that our Manifest Destiny to rule all lands sea to sea including the murder and imprisonment of native peoples and the theft of their land through violated treaty after treaty. In their world, gay folks, trans folk would be back in closets. They oppose abortion while opposing teaching of sex education in the schools and Christianity would determine curriculum. (See the Hillsdale College suggested curriculum they endorse).

They want to dumb down all our schools. Period. They are not friends of a well-rounded public education.

What they are doing in Philly makes it crystal clear who and what they are. When you vote for local school boards this Fall, make sure you know exactly what and who you are voting for.