The American Revolution Museum plans to welcome Moms for Liberty group, which advocated against LGBTQ+ rights. Because of this, many historians work on stopping the museum’s hosting of this extremist organization. Even though the public sees Moms for Liberty as a conservative group, they see themselves in a different way. They are protecting child rights.
The American Revolution Museum Under Protest for Deciding to Welcome Moms for Liberty
The anti-hate watchdog Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the group as extremist, anti-government. The organization is hosting an event in Philadelphia with some public figures, including Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. The summit caught an attention os some, so the ARM made a decision on welcoming Moms for Liberty on Thursday. Many people, on the other side, are not happy with the museum’s decision.
Moms for Liberty says they are advocating children rights and better education, but other civil and non-profit organizations describe Moms for Liberty as an “oppressive and racist” organization. They forbid school discussions on race, sexual preferences, gender and are banning books focused of these topics.
“Moms for Liberty claims to be a grassroots organization, but its founders and founding chapter have strong ties to high-ranking elected officials and national anti-LGBTQ groups including the Heritage Foundation”, GLAAD notes on its website. Also, the American Historical Association (AHA) wrote a letter to the museum’s president R Scott Stephenson, and expressed their protest against the museum’s decision to host Moms for Liberty.
An Outrage: A Normalization of Extremist Groups
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The AHA’s letter reads: “As the largest professional organization of US historians in the country, the OAH expresses, unequivocally, the organization’s opposition to the actions of M4L and groups like it that seek to distort history and historical practice. There are multiple harms at the center of the agenda of these groups: harm to accurate and inclusive history, harm to the work undertaken everyday by our community of historians, and harm to individual historians—especially in the LGBTQ+ and BIPOC communities”.
They also added: “We condemn these groups that threaten by word and action the ability of teachers to teach, students to learn, scholars to produce and amplify histories of systemic discrimination, and the safety of individuals for whom that discrimination still reverberates today. The increasing normalization of these groups in the national public discourse is an outrage”.
The association and the director of the association, James Grossman, told the museum that it is not about politics, but about an organization that distorts the past and makes the work of historians difficult. The association also invited the museum to consider whether the presentation of Moms for Liberty is necessary.
