MSNBC publishes Mother’s Day op-ed attacking Moms for Liberty, changes headline after blowback

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (FLV) – MSNBC published an op-ed on Mother’s Day titled “Happy mother’s day to everyone except Moms for Liberty,” which has since been changed to “Stop the weaponization of motherhood” after blowback.

Moms for Liberty Co-founder Tiffany Justice told Florida’s Voice the article also titled the story “MOTHER OF ALL EVILS,” which has since been removed.

“My goodness. I mean, what’s the purpose of that? What is MSNBC going for by saying that – by saying ‘mother of all evils?’ I mean, we’re moms who are very concerned about the fact that the majority of American children are not learning to read in school. I’m not sure how that makes any mom evil?” Justice said.

The report said the group, Moms for Liberty, advocates for “book bans,” fights to “curtail the rights of LGBTQ youth” and “push for widespread restrictions on what public schools can teach about race, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”

Justice said the statement is “insulting and defamatory.”

“We have members who are gay, and we have members who have children who are gay. And every time they make a statement like that it’s insulting and defamatory,” Justice said.

The author of the op-ed, Julie Kohler, said the story was about “maternal activism” and “how the identity of ‘mom’ has been weaponized for harm and how we can build something better.”

Justice said she believes the article was written by a “political operative, who wants to try to marginalize the concerns of parents.”

“This is the most disgusting piece of trash I’ve ever read. Why did you ever think it was okay to publish something like this?” Twitter user @themonfather replied.

“Hate speech if I ever read it. This is complete trash and more validation that @Moms4Liberty is over the target to your communist agenda. Not on our watch,” Twitter user @juliecbarrett said.

MSNBC tweeted the article with caption, “Moms get results. But motherhood has been used to aid and even enable oppression. And it’s happening again.”

“How rude @MSNBC Attacking mothers ON Mother’s Day? You’ve got 364 other days to do that. Good grief,” Moms for Liberty Co-Founder Tina Descovich said.

According to their website, Moms for Liberty is dedicated to “fighting for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.”

The group has created a massive grassroots network of parents across the country with 275 chapters across 45 states and more than 115,000 members.

“Don’t believe the mainstream media when it comes to the state of our public education system. Moms for Liberty is calling out the educational failure and partnering with legislators and people involved in education that want to truly make a difference,” Justice said.

“We’re hopeful for the future and just really focused on getting good people elected in school boards and putting the focus back on reading, writing and arithmetic in American public schools,” Justice said.

In February, Florida’s Voice reported Moms For Liberty Co-Founders met with DeSantis and other school board reform leaders to announce an initial “target list” for 14 school board positions in the 2024 election.

The group met to strategize school board endorsements, decide on the first round of targets for 2024, and decide on a candidate recruitment, interview, and endorsement process going forward.

Moms for Liberty actively worked to take the Parents’ Bill of Rights legislation from Florida’s 2021 legislation session into every state in the country. Currently, there are 13 states that have a version of this legislation up for consideration in 2023.