A group called Mamas for Liberty, which has an innocuous-sounding name unknown to many voters, is rapidly gaining influence among conservatives and the national Republican Party.
The parent rights organization announced it has grown to 285 chapters in 45 states since starting in Florida in 2021 to fight mask and vaccine mandates in public schools.
Now, their message has spread to Hartford County, with the local chapter hosting a controversial national guest speaker in the Farmington Valley on October 21st. Avon Democrats are planning a protest rally against Moms’ conservative views outside the event. The moms became so controversial that they formed an opposition group called STOP Moms for Liberty.
The group expanded from its original issues to become involved in conservative parental rights movements, such as book bans and opposition to critical race theory, which energized conservatives, but the are not widely taught in schools and are ignored by others.
With remarkable speed for a group formed by three mothers just two years ago, Mamas held its second annual summit, bringing together former President Donald Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, and South Carolina Governor Ron DeSantis. I heard speeches from top Republican presidential candidates, including former Governor Nicky. Vivek Ramaswami, a graduate of Haley and Yale Law School;
“Republican moms feel it’s very important to have more control over what’s happening on local school boards and what’s being done to their children’s education,” the writer said. said Gary Rose, a longtime political science professor at Sacred Heart University. Fairfield. “The Moms for Freedom movement is actually a powerful force in grassroots politics today, and it’s something we should be hearing more about.”
Rose added, “A lot of it comes from cultural and moral issues, the woke movement that’s impacting public schools right now.” Gender identity, critical race theory, mask mandates, vaccines, these are all connected to what’s happening in public schools, and mothers are very concerned about what their children are hearing. Masu. ”
On the political level, Republican Glenn Youngkin rode a wave of discontent over cultural issues into office as governor of Virginia. In Connecticut, a concerned group of five activist parents won a Republican primary in Guilford’s school board primary two years ago, but then lost to Democrats in a high-turnout general election. Ta.
connecticut symposium
In Avon, a group of moms is hosting an event called “Parental Rights Symposium – What’s the Controversy?”
The featured speaker, author James Lindsay, is described as a “leading critic of critical race theory,” according to a copy of the invitation obtained by The Courant.
Lindsay is a controversial author who was banned from Twitter but returned after billionaire Elon Musk bought the platform. He has been criticized by critics for promoting conspiracy theories and is the author of “Racial Marxism: The Truth About Critical Race Theory and Practice.” He has been a guest on his Fox News and his Joe Rogan podcast.
He is also the author of “Cynical Theory: How Activist Scholarship Has Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity—And Why This Hurts Everyone.”
The moms’ invitation only says the Oct. 21 symposium will be held in the “Farmington Valley area,” but it will be held at the Avon Senior Center, where Democrats gather in protest. Some people say.
“The Avon Democratic Party strongly condemns any organization that serves to demonize, dehumanize, and erase entire groups of people,” the Democratic Party said on Facebook. “We condemn efforts to exclude books from libraries, topics from curricula, events and individuals from history classes, and diverse voices from conversations. We condemn the intimidation that educators, librarians, and school administrators are experiencing in Connecticut and across the country because they are reinstating the idea of ”purity” as a tactic to marginalize vulnerable populations. ”
They go on to say, “The rhetoric espoused by Moms for Liberty and its funders and affiliates is filled with vitriol that is homophobic, transphobic, racist, and xenophobic. This group We encourage you to study how they have evolved and what their ultimate goals are.”
The Hartford County Moms chapter issued a statement opposing the book’s ban, saying it mischaracterized the group. The branch was launched earlier this year and is said to operate independently of the national organization.
“We want books to be age-appropriate. No book bans or book burning,” the group said. “We are not transphobic or homophobic. LGBTQ+ people are well represented in our chapter. …We do not want homophobia, racism, sexism. Parents who say, “I am the one raising my child, and the government will not raise me” are labeled as “extremists.” ”
When it comes to sports, he says, “We support women’s sports and we support Title IX. We support women’s sports and support Title IX. A girl losing her scholarship to a biological male is devastated. Feminists fought so hard for that.”
But Lt. Gov. Susan Bycevic said the group has a broader purpose.
“Moms for Liberty is a group that supports the book bans that are happening across the country and across the state of Connecticut,” Bysiewicz said in an interview with the Courant. “They’re a big source of it, but obviously they’re coming from other places as well. … If you look at the Moms for Liberty website, it all seems very innocuous. … This is really serious.” That means voters in Connecticut need to pay close attention to who is running for school board and what their priorities are.”
Vicevic said she was worried about Lindsey, a guest speaker coming to Avon.
“James Lindsay has made a number of public statements that are homophobic,” Bysiewicz said. “He said the Pride flag is the flag of the enemy. He said drag queens are targeting themselves for violence. … It’s really very disturbing. He’s calling it white genocide, white people. This is someone who talks about the eradication of species.”
Lindsay will be speaking about his book, “The Marxization of Education,” in his keynote address. He will then appear on a panel moderated by author and political analyst L. Todd Wood, a former military pilot who served in Delta Force and SEAL Team 6.
“He now has a new mission: to protect the American way of life and fight the destructive socialist ideology that threatens American sovereignty and everything that makes this country great,” Wood’s website states. “Rescue America from domination.”
The cost for an event with Lindsey is $25 per person, and a two-hour private dinner with him later in the day is $100 per person, including an autographed copy of his book.
The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the moms’ group “extremist” in its opinion.
“Moms for Liberty and its national chapters advocate banning books from school libraries and support candidates for public office who align with the group’s views, which they see as the ‘woke indoctrination’ of children. ” the law center says on its website. “They also used multiple social media platforms to target teachers and school officials, advocate for the abolition of the Department of Education, promote conspiracy propaganda, and spread hateful images and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community. using.”
But Rose, a longtime political science professor, said some of the rhetoric is overblown and overheated.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center calls everyone an extremist,” said Rose, who has written 15 books on politics over the past 30 years. “Honestly, I don’t think people who study politics today take the Southern Poverty Law Center’s explanations and group categorizations as seriously as they once did. They’ve become such a far-left group, Anyone on the center right now gets labeled as an extremist. I don’t give much weight to what they say. It’s hard to call Mamas for Liberty an extremist group, but they… I’m not at all surprised that it fell into that category.”
Mama’s is well known among Republicans and conservatives, but less so among Democrats and the general public.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal knew little about the group, but asked aides whether his office had received any inquiries.
“I don’t do business with them,” Blumenthal told the Courant.
Like Blumenthal, House Republican Leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford had few details about the group. But he said politicians and others need to tone down their rhetoric and stop labeling various groups as extremists.
“What I’m always concerned about is the fact that Democrats are so quick to label people, to cut people down, to be so intolerant of different points of view, and that’s because they… “I think that’s a very dangerous approach that they’re taking.” “Their continued intolerance of people’s opinions is really stepping into territory I’ve never seen before. We should listen to everyone’s opinions instead of trying to dismiss them.”
Candelora added: “I know a lot about some of these groups, but I don’t necessarily agree with all of their positions. But I wouldn’t label them as extremists. I can’t say they’re a hate group. I don’t think they’re homophobic. …We need to end the labeling. Politics has become a bloody sport, and we don’t think they’re homophobic. It needs to stop.”
The Fairfield County chapter of Moms is led by Amanda Dombrowski, a 43-year-old mother from Trumbull. She has become politically active, organizing a Facebook group known as “Moms for Bob” to support Republican Bob Stefanowski in the 2022 gubernatorial race.
Before becoming a mother, she used to have independent views, but has since taken a more conservative position. Those issues included mask requirements in schools, along with her continued concerns about crime, taxes and inflation.
Dombrowski, along with hundreds of others, took her 4-year-old child to the state Capitol on State of the Union Day in February 2022 to protest mask mandates. She told a television reporter that her parents should make the decision and that mask mandates are “absolutely ridiculous.”
For decades, Republicans and Democrats have fought over issues like taxes and national security. But that has changed.
“There are social and moral issues at play,” Rose said. “That’s what the pro-freedom moms are concerned about. We’re in a new era when it comes to school board elections, where they seem to be more concerned with getting a better education than with the issues and their political implications. . The board of education is an area that is receiving a lot of attention right now.”
Christopher Keating can be reached at ckeating@courant.com.