PHILADELPHIA — Members of the controversial, self-described parental rights group Moms for Liberty vowed not to be deterred by opposition as their annual gathering kicked off a second day in Philadelphia — even as a sizable crowd of protesters gathered outside with no plans to give up their vigil, either.
For a second day, demonstrators heckled conference attendees, organized banned-book giveaways and waved signs with slogans like “Moms for Bigotry” and “It’s been 247 years, and we still need to fight tyranny in Philadelphia.”
The day offered the potential for some of the most contentious moments of the four-day summit both inside the conference site and at protest locations across the city.
A slate of Republican presidential hopefuls including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley were scheduled to address attendees at conference sites across the city throughout the day.
Meanwhile, demonstrators had scheduled events including an all-day “dance party protest” and a noon rally outside the Free Library’s central branch on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
As DeSantis addressed the breakfast crowd inside the Loew’s Hotel in Center City Friday morning, a crowd of roughly 60 protesters amassed, spilling out into Market Street, waving Pride flags and chanting against the Moms for Liberty platform and its opposition to diversity education and LGBTQ sensitivity in schools.
Hanoch Fields, a rabbi and retired colonel and chaplain with the U.S. Army, stood among masses.
“I fought to defend against this,” he said as he gazed up at the hotel. “There’s free speech, and then there’s what this group is espousing.”
Founded in Florida in 2021 amid protests over COVID pandemic school closures, Moms for Liberty has since emerged as a leading force in training and recruiting conservative candidates for local school boards across the country.
Its efforts to organize book bans in school libraries and vocal opposition to diversity education and sensitivity to LGBTQ issues in classrooms has drawn sustained criticism. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that tracks domestic extremism, recently designated the group an “antigovernment extremist” organization trafficking in conspiracies and propaganda.
The conference — set to continue through Sunday — is scheduled to feature panel discussions on some of Moms for Liberty’s controversial platforms, including its efforts to limit classroom discussion of race and gender identity through library book bans and running candidates for local school boards.
Scheduled speakers also include organizers behind groups like “Gays Against Groomers” — a term that has been used in conservative circles to falsely accuse LGBTQ people of preying on children.
Travis and Kristin Culver, members of the advocacy group Defense of Democracy, said they drove two hours from Luzerne County Friday morning to protest the group and speak out in support of their nonbinary child.
They said they feared the organization’s influence taking hold in their local school board.
“Even if it wasn’t in our schools, we’d be here,” Kristin Culver said.
The crowds at Friday’s protests sites were smaller than the one that gathered the night before at the Museum of the American Revolution, which hosted a first night welcome reception for Moms for Liberty attendees. That boisterous demonstration sparked a few contentious moments with police.
The mood at early demonstrations Friday was just as energized, though less tense. The gatherings drew a slightly older crowd — with significant numbers of suburban parents and grandparents — than the protests the night before.
Among them was Martha Hickson, a 63-year-old high school librarian, who made the 90-minute trip from Hunterdon County, N.J., where she says she’d been personally attacked and called a pornographer and pedophile by parents pushing book bans in her school.
That group, she said, unsuccessfully pushed to ban five books that touched on LGBTQ themes — including Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison and This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson . Still, Hickson said the threat remains as groups like Moms for Liberty become more effective in organizing.
“Each one of those books fills a need,” Hickson said. “To erase the book, is to erase the person.”
As the speeches from GOP political candidates continued inside, protesters were joined by their own small crew of ideologically aligned elected officials.
“Their ideas aren’t new,” said state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D., Phila.) who delayed a trip to Harrisburg Friday to address the demonstrators. He derided Moms for Liberty’s emphasis on book bans and LGBTQ issues as cynical and not the way to invest in public schools.
“These ideas have lost before,” he said, “and they’re going to lose again.”
Meanwhile, Philadelphia City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas led the crowd outside the Loews Hotel in chanting “get out of our city.”
So far, conference attendees have largely been shielded by police from the groups outside. Summit attendees were shuttled into the Thursday’s event at the American Revolution museum by charter bus and protected by barricades.
Still, the crowds that have trailed them across the city haven’t escaped notice. Several conference attendees said the protests they’d encountered in Philadelphia have been more intense than at Moms for Liberty’s 2022 conference in Tampa.
“They’re holding up signs, ‘Stop the hate.’ You’re the ones that are hating, because you’re right here with all these signs and yelling at us,” said Barbara Sonafelt, who said she was escorted by police past the protesting crowds Friday morning to retrieve her ID badge.
“If they would pay attention to what’s actually going on, instead of repeating all the stuff that’s been told,” she said, “I think they might have a better grasp on society as a whole.”
DeSantis, in his speech, also acknowledged the protesters outside.
“I see Moms for Liberty is coming under attack by the left, attack by the corporate media, protests out here in the streets,” he said. “That is a sign that we are winning.”
