Lobby group wants LGBTQ+ kids in separate classrooms ‘like children with autism, Down’s syndrome’
Moms for Liberty members were interviewed by MSNBC. (MSNBC)
The anti-LGBTQ+ lobby group Moms for Liberty has called for LGBTQ+ kids to be placed in separate classrooms “like children with autism or Down’s syndrome”.
Moms for Liberty, started by two mothers who love to rage against “transgender contagion”, has been running for less than two years.
It rapidly expanded to 215 chapters in 40 states after being promoted by right-wing commentators like Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh and Steve Bannon.
Earlier this month, an episode of MSNBC’s Field Report with Paola Ramos featured Moms of Liberty Miami president Eulalia Jimenez, who believes COVID vaccines are “poison” and that there are “children being smuggled through underground tunnels for the enjoyment of demons”, as well as other members of her chapter.
In one group interview, member Crystal Alonso told Ramos that discussion with pupils about being LGBTQ+ should not be an “open thing in classrooms”, and said she believes queer kids should be confined to “separate classrooms”.
“Like for example children with autism, Down’s syndrome, they have to have special IEP [individualised education plan] meetings with a counsellor,” she said.
“They have to be put into separate classrooms.
“I understand, because it’s a different type of education for children with those disabilities, but I think that for children that identify differently, there should also be like a specialised… something for them.”
Members of Moms For Liberty, the group actively banning books across the country, terrorizing queer kids, and taking over school boards, calling for LGBTQ kids to be put in separate classrooms “like kids with autism and Down syndrome”. https://t.co/7skrbxFghW
— Brandon Wolf (@bjoewolf) August 17, 2022
The comments are especially disturbing as Moms for Liberty is not just a group of angry, anti-LGBTQ+ parents – it is beginning to have political power.
Moms for Liberty’s Florida chapters have worked with state governor Ron DeSantis in pushing his reviled ‘Don’t Say Gay’ legislation, which bans the mention of LGBTQ+ identities in schools.
The nationwide group is infamous for relentlessly fighting to remove books with LGBTQ+ themes from schools and libraries, and last year even offered a $500 bounty if its followers turned in teachers discussing “divisive” topics in New Hampshire.
At the Moms for Liberty 2022 summit, which hosted guests like DeSantis and Betsy DeVos, the group’s executive director of program development Marie Rogerson said: “We must be active, we must care, we must be alert and awake. We must not give in to fear.
“When the opposition protests and holds signs proclaiming that you cannot love liberty and ban books remember; first, we are not banning books; but, because liberty has a moral foundation, you absolutely can demand that sexually explicit, corrupt text be removed or restricted because that is the RIGHT thing to do.”
