'Liberate our children': Journalist details the extremism she observed at Moms for Liberty’s Philly gathering

05 July 2023

From June 29-July 2, the far-right MAGA group Moms for Liberty held its annual summit in a city so Democratic that it hasn't had a Republican mayor since Bernard Samuel left office in January 1952: Philadelphia. The four-day event, held at the Philadelphia Marriott near Reading Terminal Market and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, was greeted by angry protesters who slammed the group for its campaign to exclude books by gay, lesbian and African-American authors from public schools.

Moms for Liberty (M4L) touts itself a "parental rights" group, but to critics, their real mission is to purge schools of as many Black and gay authors as possible.

In an article published by the Daily Beast on July 5, journalist Kate Briquelet offers an in-depth account of what she observed at the M4L gathering in Philly — where the speakers included Republican presidential hopefuls such as former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Far-right radio host Dennis Prager was also there.

Briquelet notes that while attending the summit, she didn't go out of her way to broadcast the fact that she was a Daily Beast reporter.

"My mission was to blend in and get the full experience of this ideological sisterhood, one that came with a swag bag holding a Trump air freshener, comic book on the Pilgrims' journey aboard the Mayflower, and 'awake not woke' sticker with a passage of scripture," Briquelet explains. "Throughout the summit, once people asked where I was from and whether I was with a M4L chapter, they didn't dig much further. Only one person, a fellow infiltrator, asked about my profession."

Briquelet reports that DeSantis railed against "wokeness" during his speech, while Trump promised to "liberate our children from the Marxist lunatics and perverts who have infested our educational system" if elected president in 2024.

Trump told the crowd, "On Day 1, I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children…. For any public schools that are engaged in these militant and country-destroying practices, I will instruct the DOJ to pursue them as violators of the establishment clause, of the free exercise clause, of our constitution."

Briquelet notes that during the summit, "Moms for Liberty speakers and attendees seemed laser focused on defeating what they perceived as a cabal of educators, doctors and woke leftists who they claimed wanted to brainwash children into believing they were born in the wrong body. The end goal of such a conspiracy wasn't entirely clear to me."

During the event, Briquelet interviewed a lesbian activist who also attended to observe what was going on but disagrees vehemently with what Moms for Liberty represents.

The activist, identified by Briquelet as "Tina," told her, "I heard about this event when I was attending pride as a queer person. This is a group that's working against people like me and people in the community that I care deeply about, in ways that don't just result in psychological harm, but even suicide and physical assault. There's a danger to this kind of group, and they see people like me as a danger."

"Tina" continued, "I need to work harder against them, and I can learn more about them and do that more effectively if I attend this conference…. As a local and a non-white person, as a probably-being-perceived-as-queer person, I knew that the cards were stacked against me, and that there was a high likelihood that I would be seen as a suspicious interloper, potential disruptor, and could be kicked out of this private event. So I tried my darndest to fit in and to not trigger too many suspicions in my conversations."

Read the Daily Beast's full report at this link (subscription required).

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