moms for liberty iowa

Build the strongest argument relying on authoritative content, attorney-editor expertise, and industry defining technology. Ron DeSantis, along with anti-vax conspiracy theorist-turned-Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Initially, Moms for Liberty was seemingly created to harass just one woman. While Jenkins said she mostly didnt fear for her own life, she remembered one incident where a man was protesting at her house and then left to go to a school board meeting. Their stories paint a picture of a group that conducts orchestrated harassment campaigns against individuals, thats resulted in many fearing for their safety and, in some cases, their lives. The two people who got elected are super extreme.. More than two . Jennie Garner, the director of the North Liberty LIbrary in North Liberty, Iowa, has decorated the windows of her library with images of books that Moms for Lilberty wants banned from public libraries across the nation. We'd love to hear eyewitness Access unmatched financial data, news and content in a highly-customised workflow experience on desktop, web and mobile. Moms for Liberty has targeted teachers, administrators, parents, and school board members, orchestrating harassment campaigns that have left people fearing for their safetyand in some cases, their lives. Democrats on the committee noted that the parents were able to successfully prevent their own children from accessing certain books they disagreed with, even if the books were not removed or limited to all students. (Octavio Jones/Getty Images), violently harassed and intimidated parents, posted a comment on Facebook featuring the same quote, anti-vax conspiracy theorist-turned-Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Phone: 321.345.1671 | Email: [email protected] | Media: [email protected] Copyright 2022 We strongly reject any attempts to portray our members as violent or threatening., Tony has seen first-hand how widespread Moms for Libertys impact is. While the harassment of Jenkins has subsided, it has never fully gone away. Our relationship is getting stronger. It is obscene and sexually explicit. "The process is too subjective, too lengthy, and frankly, there are too many inappropriate books that need to be removed from our schools," said Pam Gronau, an Urbandale mother and legislation chair for the Polk County Moms for Liberty. Its not gonna go away, Cross said. I wasnt the only one on the board defending them, but I was definitely not afraid to say it loud and proud, Jenkins said. Leaven was not the only superintendent who was forced out as a result of Moms for Libertys attack campaigns. I am surprised that chair Paige Miller issued a written apology. According to federal and state records, the committees have received no contributions and made no expenditures. person will not be tolerated. Even those whom Moms for Liberty profess to be protecting have denounced their methods. And Moms for Liberty is spreading its warped version of parental rights across the country. In April, the protests moved from the school board meetings to Jenkins house. The crowd responded to each protestor by chanting "USA.". Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Alistair Bell, Supreme Court blocks Biden student loan forgiveness, Biden condemns Supreme Court decision on student loans, to unveil new action, Student loan ruling may be windfall for US deficit reduction, Moms for Liberty emerges as a force in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, All eyes in Brazil on Michelle Bolsonaro as her husband's career implodes, Russia's Lavrov calls for UN Security Council membership to be expanded, Zelenskiy orders Ukraine to strengthen northern defences, Venezuela opposition candidate Machado barred from holding office-gov't, Exclusive: Ukraine brings first charges for deporting Kherson orphans. He has made a lot of decisions to make a lot of moms happy in this country, Descovich told Reuters last month. During this meeting they discussed SEL (Social and Emotional Learning), inappropriate reading material in the school libraries, and supporting quality candidates for the school board election in November 2023. In Arkansas, the head of communications of the Lonoke County chapter said that librarians should be plowed down with a freaking gun. In Chattanooga, Tennessee, a member of a local Moms for Liberty chapter harassed an opposing group, threatened to report them for child abuse, and called them pedophile sympathizers. In Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, police had to be called to a school board meeting after members of Moms for Liberty accused attendees of being groomers and wanting to show explicit pictures to children. There is nothing hateful about the education bill or Moms for Liberty. But that doesn't mean there won't be a Bolsonaro running in three years' time. My daughter has been called the N-word in school, Cross said, adding that another student had a swastika drawn on their back. His quote is meant to shock and scare every liberty-loving adult. The other board member, Gene Trent, did not respond to VICE News request for comment. You can use them to display text, links, images, HTML, or a combination of these. Some members of Moms for Liberty chapters have also been accused -- and in at least one case, convicted of harassment. Iowa currently has Moms for Liberty chapters in 5 counties Carroll, Linn, Polk, Story, and Warren". In Livingston County, Michigan, a chapter allegedly engaged with extreme methods similar to those of the original group, according to court documents and first-hand accounts of those targeted. 2023 The Gazette | All Rights Reserved. More:The impact of Gov. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, Republicans are pursuing a bill that would force educators to inform parents if a student is transgender or is questioning their gender. Its just gonna get worse. 06/30/23 2:50 PM EDT, Video & Audio The Hitler quote in the presentation He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future! is the same one placed in the newsletter. Carolyns decision didnt spring out of nowhere: Moms for Liberty, an organization that calls itself a parental rights group, had convinced Carolyn that the Rainbow Youth Project was trying to convince Tony to have his private parts removed and changed.. An Indiana branch of the national Moms for Liberty organization apologized Thursday for featuring a quote from Adolf Hitler on the front cover of its newsletter. Nicholas Carrington did not respond to a request for comment and the charges against him were ultimately dropped by police. She was also photographed at her election night victory party last August alongside two members of the Proud Boys. Were coming at you like a freight train! Notifications from this discussion will be disabled. If the government has control over our children today, they control our countrys future. Mark Mullins, the superintendent at the time, did not respond to a request for comment. Kavouniaris did not respond to VICE News request for comment. You will begin to receive our Daily Opinion updates and our topical Pints & Politics newsletter. Multiple recent VICE News investigations have uncovered a pattern of disturbing behavior by the groups members, who have violently harassed and intimidated parents, school superintendents, school board members, and students who have stood up to them. Take that as a threat. The quote used in the newsletter was taken from a speech Hitler gave during a 1935 rally: He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future. It appeared just under the masthead for the Parent Brigade newsletter published on the groups Facebook page on Wednesday night. Tony was at church one Sunday when his boyfriends parents outed him as gay, walking over to his own parents and just blurting it out. The civil rights organization particularly focuses on the largest of these, the nonprofit Moms for Liberty, in its annual Year in Hate & Extremism report for 2022, saying that it advances an anti-student inclusion agenda. 2024 Republican presidential candidates Gov. Last week, at an event hosted by Moms for Liberty, a group pushing to remove what it considers "obscene" or objectionable books from school libraries and curriculum, Gov. The Hamilton County chapter of the . Opinion content represents the viewpoint of the author or The Gazette editorial board. Since the groups founding in Florida in 2020, its influence over local and national Republican politics has grown exponentially: Its now a nation-wide movement with 260 chapters that claims to be a grassroots group working to protect students and defend parents rights. A handful of protestors interspersed themselves throughout the crowd, each standing up intermittently to interrupt Reynolds' speech Thursday night before being escorted out individually by police. We spread awareness and an understanding of the limited role of government. Cross was at the Brighton Area School District meeting to speak out against an email a school administrator had sent comparing the masking of children to prevent the spread of COVID to the Holocaust. Moms for Liberty is now in charge at the Iowa Statehouse. LGBTQ students and their parents attending the meeting had to walk through a gauntlet of protesters shouting shame on you. Video footage from the event shows a truck with American flags driving up and down the street outside the building, with the driver shouting through a speaker, calling those protesting to support the rights of LGBTQ students sick pedophiles and child molesters., If you thought January 6 was bad, wait until you see what we have for you!. Its called parents rights, but the rights are only for parents who agree with Moms for Liberty. Get an email notification whenever someone contributes to the discussion. Francesca Block is a breaking news reporter at the Des Moines Register. A group of protesters shouted the word pedophiles at the house. Both bills passed, and DeSantis signed them into law. "What we've been watching really closely around this particular group [are] times when they show up with other groups that have explicitly advocated or committed intimidations and violence," Hiller said. Someone online posted it in connection with the death of Pat Robertson. They were advocating for the measure giving parents greater input in school curriculum, as well as what critics nicknamed the Dont Say Gay bill, which prohibits classroom instruction for young children on gender and sexuality issues. driftlessnationalpark.org. Odette Yousef is a National Security correspondent focusing on extremism. Last November, two hours after being sworn in, six Moms for Liberty-backed candidates in Berkeley County School District, South Carolina fired Deon Jackson, the districts first Black superintendent. The slide was titled The Youth, with text reading, As the government schools go, so go the children and the nation. They had found Snapchat messages the teenagers exchanged, and in an instant, Tonys whole world fell apart. Newman is an involved member of the John Birch Society, an anti-civil rights organization that claimedin the 1960s that the African-American freedom movement was being manipulated from Moscow with the goal of creating a Soviet Negro Republic in the Southern United States. Newman is senior editor of The New American, a right-wing print magazine published by a subsidiary of the John Birch Society. The Hamilton County chapter of Moms for . But in a time of deepening polarization in American politics, she acknowledges that it may not. In Jenkins recollection, the protesters shouted: Were coming for you. That eventually led to debates over library books, more conservatives running for local school boards and demands for more control by parents of the curriculum. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. This is just another step in a trend where Moms for Liberty and other groups seem increasingly empowered to discriminate, attack, and display hate. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks during the inaugural Moms For Liberty Summit at the Tampa Marriott Water Street on July 15, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. "That was hateful then, and it's hateful now," said Shannon Hiller, executive director of the Bridging Divides Initiative (BDI) at Princeton University. In addition to Reynolds, the event featured several prominent Iowa Republicans. Carroll Rivas echoed this observation. "You don't have to have legislation that can be used to ban anything that's pro-LGBTQ, which is where this is heading.". But this was just the beginning of the harassment Cross faced from Smith. www.MomsforLiberty.org that is degrading to another person. Many voiced their opposition to the Republican-led legislature's current efforts. "It is my job to keep them safe," the protestor yelled as police walked them out of the building. Media Matters has since uncovered that another chapter of the . If you or someone you know is considering suicide, help is available. The bottom line is that Jen and other Moms for Liberty candidates are inciting people with conspiracy theories and inflammatory accusations about grooming that put trustees, teachers, and LGBTQ students in real danger..
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