Students at a school in the Seattle Public School District sent a batch of letters to Moms for Liberty, encouraging the recognized hate group to end its crusade against LGBTQ people. Instead, the organization blasted the school in a social media post that included images revealing the school’s address, and falsely claimed that the letters were part of a classroom curriculum that was “indoctrinating” students.
The letters to Moms for Liberty, sent by students from a single class in the district, featured phrases such as “LGBTQ+ rights are human rights” and “Gay is slay,” and images of broken hearts to describe students’ feelings when people are homophobic. One letter reads: “Dear Moms for Liberty, Stop bullying and excluding LGBTQ youth and families.”
The letters were sent in a single envelope to the organization’s home office in the spring.
Late last week, Moms for Liberty’s account on X shared images of the letters, suggesting in their post that students were forced to write them.
“Seattle Public Schools are spending class time indoctrinating and weaponizing your children,” they wrote in their post. The post included images of the letters and the envelope, with the organization’s address blocked out by permanent marker but the address of the school fully visible.
A spokesperson for the school district disputes Moms for Liberty’s assertions that the class was forced to write the letters — the project was entirely voluntary, they said, and wasn’t part of any curriculum.
In other posts, co-founder of Moms for Liberty Tiffany Justice defended the organization’s response to the letters by claiming it wasn’t anti-LGBTQ. “This isn’t about sexual orientation. This is about the sexualization of children,” Justice said.
As The Advocate pointed out in its reporting, there was nothing sexual about the letters — and Moms for Liberty consistently characterizes any mention of LGBTQ people in schools as “sexualization” of children.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has recognized Moms for Liberty — which falsely brands itself as a “parental rights” group — as an extremist organization that pushes a far right, anti-LGBTQ agenda.
“The social media accounts and real-world activity of the national organization and its chapters reflect views and actions that are antigovernment and conspiracy propagandist, anti-LGBTQ and anti-gender identity, and anti-inclusive curriculum,” the SPLC says on its website.
Moms for Liberty often uses extremist and white supremacist content to promote its views, including this past summer, when a chapter of the organization included a quote from Adolf Hitler in its newsletter.
Several advocacy groups have spoken out against Moms for Liberty and held protests at locations where the organization has had events, including at a Philadelphia museum earlier this year. Historians blasted the museum for granting the hate group a forum there.
“Moms for Liberty is an organization that has vigorously advocated censorship and harassment of history teachers, banning history books from libraries and classrooms, and legislation that renders it impossible for historians to teach with professional integrity without risking job loss and other penalties,” the American Historical Association, the largest professional organization of historians in the country, said of Moms for Liberty in June.
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