Parental rights groups respond after being placed on SPLC ‘hate map’, alongside KKK chapters

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a radical civil rights-centered organization, recently added parental rights groups to its “hate map,”  alongside the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), according to the Daily Signal. 

Parental Rights organization Moms For Liberty is now found on the hate map, alongside Parents Defending Education, and Parents’ Rights in Education. Groups like these are branded as “anti-government extremist groups” according to the SPLC report titled “The Year in Hate and Extremism Comes to Main Street.”

The report claims that “schools, especially, have been on the receiving end of ramped-up and coordinated hard-right attacks, frequently through the guise of “parents’ rights” groups.” 

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The SPLC claims that Moms for Liberty operates as an “extremist group,” noting that it “hijacks” school board meetings wearing shirts and carrying signs that say, “We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT.”

The SPLC claims that the goal of  Moms for Liberty is to “fuel right-wing hysteria” and make the world “a less comfortable or safe place for certain students” such as those who are black, LGBTQ, or from LGBTQ families. 

But Moms for Liberty Co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich told Campus Reform that the organization is simply speaking up for the “two-thirds of Americans” who “think the pubic education system is on the wrong track today.”

”That is why our organization is devoted to empowering parents to be a part of their child’s public school education. That is our fundamental goal, which began just two years ago when teacher’s unions locked students out of schools during the pandemic,” the Moms for Liberty co-founders added. Empowering parents continues to be our mission today and that has fueled our organization’s growth - like wildfire to now 45 states in the country.”

”Name-calling parents who want to be a part of their child’s education as ‘hate groups’ or ‘bigoted’ just further exposes what this battle is all about: Who fundamentally gets to decide what is taught to our kids in school - parents or government employees?” said Justice and Descovich. “We believe that parental rights do not stop at the classroom door and no amount of hate from groups like this is going to stop that.”

Erika Sanzi, Director of Outreach for Parents Defending Education, told Campus Reform, ”We plan to keep doing exactly what we are doing,” adding, “These coordinated and dishonest efforts to smear us will not deter us even for a second.”

Parents’ Rights in Education, fired back in a twitter post after being branded as a “hate group” saying that it views it as a ‘badge of honor’ and called out SPLC as a “vile/evil/hate-filled organization” who needs to “stop messing with our kids.” 

We @rightsparents take it as a badge of honor to make the ‘hate’ list of such a vile/evil/hate-filled organization as SPLC We will not stop, we will not be silenced. Stop messing with our kids... #itendshere https://t.co/Sfbyybzq0k

— Parents’ Rights In Education (@RightsParents) June 6, 2023

“SPLC is a far-left progressive organization using their divisive biased platform advocating for K-12 public school sexualization, indoctrination, medical mutilation and castration of minors, all without parent knowledge or permission,” Parents’ Rights in Education’s National Executive Director Suzanne Gallagher told Campus Reform.

 “This is wrong and violates the natural rights of parents. SPLC’s listing of our group provokes violence from the Left toward children and parents,” she stated. 

“We are parents and allies standing together, millions of voices speaking as one. Stop messing with our kids. It ends here.”

In the past, SPLC has branded certain Christian and conservative organizations as so-called “hate groups,” but now they are roping these groups into a new category called “anti-government extremist” groups. 

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“Hate and anti-government groups make up the extreme edge of America’s hard right, an inherently antidemocratic movement that rejects pluralism and equity,” the SPLC report claims. The report claims that both of these labeled groups ‘often work together’ and use ‘similar strategies’ to “negatively impact the same communities.” 

“The movement instead strives to build a society dominated by hierarchy, where people whom far rightists deem lesser or threatening – women, Black and Brown people, LGBTQ people, non-Christians and others – are socially and politically subjugated,” the report continues.

The SPLC report defines “anti-government” groups as those that “see the federal government as an enemy of the people and promote baseless conspiracy theories 

In 2022, SPLC found on its “hate map” that there are 523 deemed “hate groups” and 702 “anti-government extremist groups.” In total, they found listed 1,225 groups.

Other organizations remain on SPLC’s “hate map” such as the Family Research Council and the Foundation for American Immigration Reform. 

The organization’s website claims to serve as a “catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond” and to “advance the human rights of all people.”