Moms for Liberty have really put themselves on the map in two short years. Parents have been crying out for an organisation that helps them mobilise a common sense opposition to an increasingly woke education establishment and to connect like minded concerned families. Moms for Liberty founder, Tina Descovich joins us to discuss how it started and how they have grown all over the US to become the most visible group that stands up for parental rights at all levels of government and how this could be...
Moms for Liberty have really put themselves on the map in two short years.
Parents have been crying out for an organisation that helps them mobilise a common sense opposition to an increasingly woke education establishment and to connect like minded concerned families.
Moms for Liberty founder, Tina Descovich joins us to discuss how it started and how they have grown all over the US to become the most visible group that stands up for parental rights at all levels of government and how this could be replicated in the UK and elsewhere.
Join us this episode to be inspired and please share with all the moms, dads, grands, aunts, uncles and friends out there!
Tina Descovich has a long record of fighting for students and parental rights in Florida and at the national level. She was elected to the Brevard County, FL school board in 2016. She was selected by her peers in 2017 to serve as Vice Chairman and Chairman in 2018. While on the school board she was a member of The Florida Coalition of School Board Members and served as the organization’s president in 2018. Tina currently serves on several non-profit boards in her community that are aimed at helping children. She and her husband Derek have five children. She is passionate about America and is dedicated to protecting liberty and freedom for the future of all children.
Moms for Liberty are Moms, Dads, Grands, Aunts, Uncles and Friends.
They welcome all that have a desire to stand up for parental rights at all levels of government.
The founders are Tiffany and Tina, moms on a mission to stoke the fires of liberty. As former school board members, they witnessed how short-sighted and destructive policies directly hurt children and families. Now they are using their first-hand knowledge and experience to unite parents who are ready to fight those that stand in the way of liberty.
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.
Their vision is to see Americans empowered and thriving in a culture of Liberty.
Moms for Liberty are joyful warriors who stand for truth, build relationships and empower others.
Connect with Tina...
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/TinaDescovich?s=20
Connect with Moms for Liberty...
WEBSITE: https://www.momsforliberty.org/
TWITTER: https://twitter.com/Moms4Liberty
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Moms4Liberty
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2H19eKURyI364Q3Rv-o_5g
Interview recorded 22.2.23
*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.
Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin
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[0:22] Hello, Hearts of Oak and welcome to another interview coming up, this time with Tina Descovich from Moms for Liberty. We followed Moms for Liberty for quite a while. I bumped into her at an event over stateside a few weeks ago and it is really exciting what has been happening there.
In two years they have grown all across the US, over 100,000 members with 270 chapters, groups all across America engaging with school boards, with schools and getting 270 or something people elected onto school boards. Really exciting. We talk about why they're there, why they're needed, their engagement with political figures. Obviously they started in Florida and you've got Governor Ron DeSantis who's a governor who understands that children must be protected from these ideologies and cannot be sexualised. So talk about how working in a state which understands that to working in states that maybe don't get that and where it's more uphill battle, mention the church and churches engagement with this issue and whether they need to become international. They've done so much in two years and it's an example to us in other countries at what can be done here where we are. So I know you'll enjoy listening to Tina as much as I enjoyed speaking with her.
Tina Descovich, thank you so much for joining us today.
[1:51] Glad to be here. Thanks for having me, Peter.
Not at all. Tina is co-founder of Mums For Liberty.
All the links are in the description. MumsForLiberty.org and you can find her on her Twitter handle @TinaDescovich.
And were going to talk about Mums For Liberty and I think I look back and you were first selected to a school board 2016. So you've been kind of involved in that whole area of engagement with our children, which we'll discuss why many parents don't. But tell us how you first got involved in that school board back in 2016.
Easy enough. I have two kids at home at the time in public schools. You know, I first got engaged, like most people do, volunteering in the classroom, things of that nature. As my oldest reached middle school, I started paying more attention to what was being brought home in the curriculum and being taught and started seeing some concerning things about American history.
[2:50] Started asking more questions. And then here in Florida, in the United States, they passed some law that expanded testing for children. And it was just some absurd law. It was like it was being interpreted wrong locally also. And so school districts were creating these standardized tests, that all students were going to have to take for every grade level in every class. So it was like a massive stressful standardized test for kindergartners to take gym and art. And it was really ridiculous.
And so I went down and I thought, you know, I talked to the school board and they're like, And it's not us. We didn't do it. It's the state's fault. And so I called my local representative, and he agreed to meet with me.
And I went down there, and he said, we didn't do that. And I said, yes, you did.
Let me show you the testing schedule from our district. And he was surprised.
And to make a really long story short, the whole law, the policy, the way it was out on the road was changed within 30 days.
And it really empowered me, just as an average mom that had a concern, it showed me that I could make a difference.
A little bit of action, a few phone calls, and taking time to explain to people what's going on, I could really make a difference in education, in government, in all kinds of ways.
So when the seat came open in 2016 in my area to run for school board, by then I had all kinds of issues I was concerned about in the school district.
I decided to throw my hat in the ring and run for school board and won my election in 2016.
[4:19] Tell us, two years ago you co-founded Moms for Liberty and you've grown rapidly in numbers and in recognition of what you're doing.
[4:31] It seems as though looking from far away here in the UK at what you're doing there that many parents were just waiting for an organisation like what you've set up for them to belong to and be part of. Is that a fair assessment?
[4:47] I would say 100%. We were watching parents as COVID was happening and schools were staying closed, and parents were trying to go to school board meetings to speak out, to ask for schools to be open, to change how the classes were being streamed into their homes or to talk about forced quarantining of healthy children. You know, most everyone saw they would get their mics shut off. School boards were closing doors and not allowing them in to speak. They were changing their speaking times from three minutes to one minute or 30 seconds or not allowing them to speak at all. And it was really a problem for a lot of parents in this country. And so, you know, we kind of looked, I say we, Tiffany Justice is the other co-founder of Moms for Liberty, and she also served on a school board in Florida from 2016 to 2020. And we have the same experiences. And so when we came off of our terms in 2020, and we kind of were having some conversations and looking at what was was going on, we thought, we know how to help these people really advocate, how to articulate what their concerns are and how to really make change.
And so we launched Mom's for Liberty here in Florida. Our goal, we launched January 1, 2021.
And our goal was just to kind of be in Florida, help parents in Florida advocate.
That's what we knew. In two weeks, we got a call from Long Island, New York.
[6:04] Mom said, I really want to start a chapter. I need one here.
And I called Tiffany, and I'm like, I don't know anything about education in New York.
In the United States. It's very different from state to state, the laws and how education is run and who has authority and control. And so I just said, I don't know anything about it. And she said, Tina, this really isn't about me and you. This is a movement and parents need this tool to be able to organize to make change. And so we said, okay, sure, we can do New York. And now here we are a little over two years and we have 270 chapters in 44 states and 115,000 moms that are actively
[6:37] fighting on the ground.
How do you connect with that? Is it mainly through the website? You provide resources? I mean tell us how you actually pull that together and make sure those members have, I guess, the tools they need to actually stand up and engage with their school.
We started with no money. We started with $500 that I put forward and I bought some t-shirts that said Moms for Liberty and sold them for a 50% or 60% profit so that I could then build up enough to buy a new computer. I was thinking about it this morning actually, you know, the back bedroom $500 box of t-shirts and a 10-year-old Mac computer is what I designed our logo on and what I built our website on and it would just spin and spin and it was so painful and I remember being so excited when we finally had enough money to buy me a new computer so that I could make some of our graphics.
Anyway, I digress a little bit. We worked on our website and social media. We used as a tool to
[7:37] connect and recruit people. We have private Facebook groups that we would kind of meet in by chapter. But really, as we've grown, we are very well structured. We're organized by county.
We have a chapter chair in each county. They register as a legal entity of Moms for Liberty.
They meet in monthly chapter meetings, live meetings they're required to if they launch a chapter to actually have physical meetings where people show up.
And they have an agenda to follow. They put together an agenda and it always includes reviewing what the school board is doing in your local community.
And so we make sure you get eyes on that. And honestly, the minute anybody looks at a school board agenda, there's all kinds of things to stand up for and fight.
So there's plenty, there's plenty there to do. We have monthly meetings via Zoom nationally where all the leaders of each organization get on and that's where we do a lot of our training.
We've been traveling to states and doing state leadership trainings now that we've grown so much. And then annually we have our National Summit, which is just a, I can't even explain what our National Summit is like.
We have 30 breakout sessions of training from everything, how to run from school board, how to run a campaign to issues like gender ideology, critical race theory that are facing us. We bring in experts. It's just, it's an amazing time. So that's going to be the summer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And we're really looking forward to that.
[8:58] What, what was it that kind of started you on this road? Was there a particular issue? Because now we're seeing a whole mass of issues which are impinging on, I guess, parents' right to parent and the state is pushing a lot of things that many, many parents are massively concerned about. But for you, was it a certain topic that you'd seen or a paper you'd seen that sparked off, you need to get involved?
So I, when I ran first for school board, one of the four key things I ran on was parental rights because I saw then that there were real concerns about school districts and higher levels of government making decisions that parents should be making about their children.
[9:43] And it was the trend was not was not in parents favour of how that was going.
Once I served on school board, I learned so many other things.
And I can speak for Tiffany, my co-founder, because we have the same story when we say this.
Once we served on school board, we saw not only the entities like school districts and state and local governments making decisions on behalf of children that parents should be making.
We saw how much power teachers unions have in making decisions on behalf of children and families.
And it was, it wasn't a pretty sight. Neither one of us liked it. We had to try to, and when you're serving on a school board, you can't push back against the teachers union. It's your job to be impartial. It's your job to bring everybody to the table for negotiations.
There's it's really a complicated situation and you are ultimately the judge if there if the whole process goes to impasse And the district is fighting over salary with the union.
[10:35] You're you have to be an impartial judge and act at that capacity So you're really cut your hands are tied on the work you can do in that area, So, you know once I was no longer on the school board I was able to I guess sing like a bird about about how government entities are stepping on parental rights and how unions are are really have way too much power in public education for a very long time.
And so those are the things we focus on. Our mission, I'm not sure if I've stated that yet with you, but our mission at Moms for Liberty is to save America by unifying, educating, and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.
It's a very specific mission. We stay laser focused, and I think that's why we are so successful.
We have a very clear understanding that once you lose your right to raise your children, how you see fit, once someone else is able to make decisions on your behalf that you are just adamantly against, all is lost.
Like your family's lost, your community's lost, and for us, America will be lost.
I think one of the strap lines used a lot is we do not co-parent with the government.
I love that, because that...
Makes you step back as a parent and think, well, that's true.
Well, what right of the government?
Because I think we have, in many countries in the West, we have entrusted our government too much and trust that they will do the right thing because you think the best of others.
But I love that strap line. Would you not co-parent with the government?
[12:04] Yeah, Tiffany first, I think, said that before Mom's Liberty was even born.
She said it on her school board in a school board meeting one time.
And so she brought that to the organization.
We picked up on it. Our best-selling shirt for the first year was, we don't co-parent with the government shirt.
We still have signs, and we use that, because it really defines what we're trying to say.
And when we speak about it, we say, I will partner with my kids' teachers, 100%.
We want to partner to help my child to be educated and be a better person.
But we do not co-parent. You are not the parent. You're not the final say.
I'll partner with you to make things better, but the final say is me.
And I think all it does, we talk about the culture wars. There are a lot of conversation about that.
And it does boil down to actually the next generation. It boils down to children, it boils down to education.
And I think what you're doing is getting to the root of that where often you will see different organizations trying to fight the fires.
And it's interesting what you're doing because you are trying to get to the roots of where the issue is, which is educating our children, as only when that can be solved, then we can actually begin to win this.
So yeah, I think what you're doing is central in regards to that.
[13:22] In America, our NAEP scores, which are global test scores, came out last year.
And America's scores were dismal at best.
We have the worst reading scores that we've had since the 1980s and the worst math scores that we've ever had in the United States of America.
Something is terribly wrong with our education system. People have known it instinctively for a while.
Nobody's been able to really articulate the problem or, you know, hasn't just just haven't done a good job at articulating the problem.
And then what we saw in 2020 with a lot of riots in our cities, a lot of racial tensions happening, it became even more clear, like, something is really, what is happening?
People just couldn't quite figure out, how do we get here? How do we get to Antifa rioting in our streets?
And how did this happen?
And Tiff and I were like, we know how this happened. And so again, how do you stay silent?
How do you go home and just take your kids and make dinner when you know you have the answer?
And it's unfortunate.
It's unfortunate. Our schools in America are so focused on social justice.
They're so focused on all these issues that have nothing to do with reading and writing and arithmetic.
And it's showing, it's showing in the test scores. It's showing in the riots in the streets.
And what our chapters have found when they've really dug into curriculum, and assignments that have come home.
[14:51] Is that there's a lot of anti-American rhetoric in our curriculum that we're teaching children.
So why are there riots in the streets? Well, for the last 20 years or so, there's been anti-American curriculum.
And so the students are getting these messages in public schools for 12 years that America is systemically bad, that our systems are broken, and the only way to fix them is to break them down completely and rebuild them.
Parents don't believe that. That's not what I was taught in school.
It's not what I believe now.
And yet I send my child off and they're being taught that for 12 straight years.
And so that's why there's riots in the streets.
[15:27] We have exactly the same where children are taught to hate British life, British culture, British history, British empire, that's all bad and there's a rush to rewrite it. And that focus is really strange. I guess back in the day, if you look back other generations, people got involved in teaching. People wanted to be teachers because they wanted to make sure schools were doing well in arithmetic and writing and reading and there was a focus on that.
[15:58] You sit back and look at it, how has that changed from you say it is now a focus on social justice and away from the basic building blocks which it's always been, teachers wouldn't really have brought their opinions in necessarily, it was simply to make sure the children could do the best at those, the three R's we call them, reading, writing, arithmetic.
How has it changed so massively from that focus?
There's a couple answers I think here.
One is the teaching colleges have, I don't think a lot of our teachers recognize that these are opinions that they're teaching.
This is what they've been taught. That's why I say this has been going on for decades for us to get where we are.
[16:44] It's what they were taught in school now. We're a generation behind.
And then it's in the textbooks and curriculum that's handed to them.
And why would they think any different?
And so I can really see a glaring difference between older, really well-seasoned teachers right now and the new teachers that are coming in.
And the new teachers, they're the ones coming straight into the classroom and saying, and they think they're being open-minded.
They think they're being more inclusive and more accepting. But the new teachers that are coming out say, please tell me which pronoun you would like to be known by, you know, and the older teachers were like, it's a boy or a girl, I'm not doing this game. And unfortunately, the older teachers are starting to retire and all of our teachers are being replaced with the ones that just came out of teaching college that were taught the right thing to do on day one, the fair and the just thing to do is really ask their pronouns, not only on the day one, but every morning because know, they can change from day to day.
[17:44] We've had a massive push on that. We've had a situation which has exploded, which is the biggest gender reassignment clinic for children here in the UK, which has now been shut down.
Tavistock has now been shut down. In March, there are up to a thousand parents who are taking the government to court over it.
But again, I'm thinking, when I look at it kind of politically, that's all happened under, in the UK, a so-called conservative government for the last 13 years. And it's curious because you used to think a conservative government used to conserve, used to keep those traditions, and yet, a lot of this confusion has happened under them. And as much as I think I would like to lay it at the feet of the left, of Biden, of the left of the UK. It seems to be that a lot on the
[18:44] supposed right have also become confused and afraid to stand up for what is right. Is that kind of what you've seen as well?
Yeah, they're not confused. They are afraid. So, and I do lay this at the feet of the left. Absolutely. That's been their agenda. They are the the ones pushing it and they are the ones that have had a plan for decades to change and reform society into this. And it is working. What you can blame the conservatives for and the average American or British citizen that just wants to get up in the morning, go to work, come home, have dinner with your family, just average normal people is they don't want to be called a bigot. They don't want to be called a homophobe. They don't want to be a hateful person. And who does? Nobody wants to be that. And most conservatives, at least in America are just like, nice, mind to themselves, maybe go to church on Sundays, just want to spend time with their family. They don't want to be attacked on social media as a bigot.
And so they think, well, I'll just be quiet, let them do them, and I'll do me and it'll be fine. But they have pushed so far, so far now that we can't just let them do them. It's not even happy. It's like they're not even happy. Let them do them. They're infiltrated our classrooms, whole states here in the United States, comprehensive sex ed, I don't want to make a leap on you, but it includes gender ideology.
Whole states here, state of New Jersey, has adopted that for all the students in the state of New Jersey.
So that means pre-K through third, by the end of second grade, I think.
[20:09] Which here is like, what, five, six, seven year olds, they have to understand the gender identities and that it can be fluid.
[20:16] That's not you do you and I do me. That's you pushing what you believe in your ideologies on me and my family and my kids. And that's why the final line in the sand for us, we're here, we're at it, we're moms.
And boy do our moms take the heat and the criticism. I mean, just go on our social media right now and look at the comments.
I delete the ones that have profanity or are really obscene, but I leave most of them up.
And they just call you all hateful, hate monger, bigot. I leave those up.
And it doesn't feel good, especially and it's your local community, it's your neighbours calling you that, but it's time to stand.
[20:51] I think it was, I looked at your Wikipedia page, which isn't always the wisest thing, but I did have to laugh. It said, many have described Moms for Liberty to be an extremist group and they've been designated as a hate group. And I'm wondering, what is hateful or extremist about wanting the best for your children?
You know, it's actually been upgraded. It used to to say Moms for Liberty is an extremist hate group.
And now somebody invested it to say many have called them as.
I'm like, oh, well, at least they know. It's getting better.
The Wikipedia page used to be really, really bad. The first time I read it, I was like, oh, my heck.
But I don't know how all that works. They have people that keep submitting, and I don't have time to deal with it.
So it's just, I'm thankful that it's a little better than it was.
But yeah, do I look like an extremist?
Am I a hate group? Do I hate anybody? No.
It's not even how I function in life. And most of our moms are that way.
We call ourselves, I was looking for my joyful warrior hat.
We call ourselves joyful warriors at Moms for Liberty. We're gonna fight like that, but we're gonna do it with a smile on our face because this is serious business, but we don't want our kids seeing us angry and miserable and hateful.
Oh, that's a good way to look at it.
[22:03] You looked at, tell us about kind of how states work. Cause here in the UK, our model is really, you've got within the whole of England, it's generally the same.
You've got local education authorities, which would be smaller kind of areas, and they decide, and they're quite difficult to actually get into and find out what they're putting it out.
In the US, you've got a clear demarcation, I guess, and more visible, which is state by state.
Tell us how, kind of how much it does differ by states.
[22:37] I have a question for you really fast. Are your school leaders in an area, are they elected or appointed?
So we have again, completely different and I have watched the school board meetings with jealousy, a lot of jealousy and envy because we don't have that. We have a small school board of governors and small, you may have maybe half a dozen, But it's not really talked about or publicized.
And I know the school one of my children are at. They say, well, there's a five-year waiting list.
And it's kind of more cloak and daggers. And it's not really out there where what you do is open.
And people can see it. They can engage with it. So here the parents vote.
But it's not that well known or publicized.
[23:25] Sounds like you need some Moms for Liberty chapters in the UK to liven this up. So here, this is a hard topic for me to talk to you in another country about because I am so passionate about America's form of government. I think it's the best there is, and so I don't want to come off as arrogant or offensive to the British form of government, but I don't know exactly how it works.
Doing what you've done in two years, go for it. Say what you like.
I love our form of government. So first of all, our federal constitution, it basically says that if it's not written in this document, the authority belongs to the states. And so the federal constitution doesn't talk about education. So from day one when America was born, when we broke away from you all, education belonged to the state or even more local, actually. But in
[24:23] in modern America, the states have really taken a priority on that.
And it looks different from state to state, which is also fascinating to watch how it's set up, how it's structured.
But the one thing that's the same and it's truly American is that school boards are elected except for one state, Hawaii.
Hawaii appoints their school board for the whole state.
And we're working on that because that is a problem for me. That is not American. And so you elect your school board members and the laws and policies that states have put in place.
It's just beautiful. I mean, here where I live,
all of the curriculum, when you adopt a textbook, you have to put it out publicly for two public school board meetings. You have to notify in your local paper that there's a book that's about to be adopted for your district. You have to stop the meeting, hit the gavel and say, because I was chair of our school board, is there anyone here tonight that wants to speak about this book we're about to adopt? You know, there's much more formal language than that. And you have to pause and then, you have to ask again. By law, you have to ask twice, is there anyone here? And you have to open up the microphone and let them complain all they want or support all they want the books you're about to adopt into a school district. And it's like that all across the country. So our form of government is set up for parents to be 100% involved and drive education in your local community.
[25:38] However, I served on a school board. Parents did not take advantage of that, not the four years I was there. And so, you know, I would put out, we're about to adopt a textbook and I will tell you the room would be empty. And, you know, I would put it out on social. I would shout from the rooftops, We're about to adopt a history textbook.
I'm just a school board member. I don't have time to review 12 years of history textbooks for every grade level before I adopt them. I need the community to be involved.
I need parents to be doing this. And so it's one of the reasons we created Moms for Liberty the way we did.
Now we have 115,000 moms and parents around the country that are taking the time to review these things.
And they can give the feedback to their school board members.
At a very minimum, they're being good citizens. They're participating in the process.
And so yes, when you say you're jealous watching the school board meetings, I understand because I love it.
It is, that's my like theatre. That's my Hollywood, watching school board meetings.
And you're obviously in a state, Florida, that has taken this seriously. We heard De Santis, I heard him speak the first time the other week over there in Miami talking about what he is doing, his track record, and you sit back and you think, wow, it's impressive he gets it. Tell us about that political engagement, because as you say, some states get it and some states don't.
[27:00] Governor DeSantis has gotten it pretty much from the beginning, at least from Moms for Liberty. So when we first launched in 2021, a lot of the districts in Florida were still force masking children. And we were looking at some other countries that weren't doing that and, you know, just our own gut instincts. And my son, who was struggling with mental health issues, and it's just, it wasn't a good fit for him. And so we just, we had, we knew a lot of moms were just really frustrated with this, that they didn't get to decide if their child was going to wear a mask or not.
And so our moms, you know, they bought their first Mom's Liberty t-shirt and they would make homemade posters and they would kind of like stalk Governor DeSantis.
They would show up, if he was speaking about the economy, they would show up across the street in their shirts and their signs and it would say, get these masks off our kids, Governor DeSantis.
And we had political operative type people tell us that is not the way to engage with the governor.
It's not the way to engage politically. You guys are never going to be successful, but you try telling a mom that she can't do that, and so everywhere he travelled around the state, our moms were showing up with these signs.
And it wasn't because we told them to, It's just because
[28:04] they needed to tell the governor that he needed to help them because their school districts were not listening. And, you know, Governor DeSantis took that in. He would look, see the signs, and then lo and behold, there was some press conference where he was like, uh-uh, no more of this. Parents don't want this. And so he does that time and time again. He listens. He listens to the people on the ground and what they're saying, and then he takes action.
And for me, I haven't seen that in the political world happen very often. And so we in Florida are very blessed and at Moms for Liberty we have been so thankful for all he has done to fight for parents.
[28:37] And can school boards push back? So they're pushing back maybe what's happening in different states and in Florida it will be easier because you have a administration or government within the state that is more understanding of that and will be just as shocked I guess. But what happens happens if it's a state that, God forbid, anyone is living on the West Coast in California, and it's more difficult there. Do the school boards still have the authority if the parents are there involved to push back on it, or is it much more of an uphill battle depending on the state?
It is definitely much more of an uphill battle depending on the state, because state laws oftentimes direct what's going on at the school district level. In New York, for example, our chapters are really struggling. I mean, they're looking at forced vaccinations, you know, adding new vaccinations that they don't want their children to have. And the state
[29:36] would make that law. And once they do, the school districts have to comply. In Florida, school districts derive their power from our state constitution. And so the state kind of trumps authority on most education issues. You know, they don't have the time, the energy or the patience to carry out all the laws and such that they vote in and enact. That's the job of the school board. So when you're elected to the school board position, you actually swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution and the Florida Constitution, which outlines a lot of the education laws, statutes, and policies.
[30:10] But it's different from state to state. In other states, school districts have more authority than they do in Florida. They derive their power sometimes from the city or the county. It's very interesting how it's set up. And so we help our chapters navigate through that in their area.
[30:25] As we've grown, there's more chapters in each state. They actually form like state coalitions and then work on these things together with resources and tools to understand what's going on and fight it.
Can I ask you a question about another political engagement? But there's another side, I guess, which is church engagement. As Christians, we would like to see the church involved. But we've certainly seen here that maybe a fifth of our schools are church schools, part of the Church of England. So it is part of, we don't have any separation church and state.
Anyway, that's a whole other issue. But those, the church schools are even worse than the others.
And they've jumped into all this diversity and inclusion nonsense. They want all the whole pride displays on different floors of primary school and they're pushing all of that. What's it like there? What's kind of your engagement with the churches or where do the churches fit in to actually encouraging schools or speaking truth within that environment.
[31:32] So, are you saying that church schools are also state schools in England?
Yeah, we have a weird mix where, I mean, traditionally schools were set up by the church, if you go back in history, and that has remained.
We have a quasi-strained situation where they're set up by churches but still follow the state curriculum.
So, it's a very strange mix we have in the UK, but you'd expect a church school set by the state church would actually be strong on biblical values of freedom, but actually often that is not the case and they've been as captured by the left and the diversity agenda as any other schools.
Yeah, you know, I'm going to go back to my Americanism here. It's one of the reasons we broke away from you guys was to get separated, you know, but here's the thing, we are returning back to that in a different, almost in a reverse way, because, you know, the woke nonsense is kind of a religion and it's capturing all the public schools. It's seeping over into our private schools. So for us, the religious schools are private schools. And so they can do what they want and how they want and parents pay for to attend those. And so parents
[32:44] have a lot more control technically because they would say, I'm not going to give you $20,000 this year for my student to go if you keep that garbage in. And so it's a, it's a much more, you know, you can make it change quickly. But as far as the churches go here in America, you know, I think the consensus is it's been very disappointing. They, many of them, I'm not going to say all of them, but many of them are captured and have bought into this and they're scared and don't want to stand up. They hide behind churches saying that churches can't get involved in politics, they'll lose their non-profit status. So they hide, you know, we left you guys to separate church and and state, and then now they're hiding behind it to be weak, in my opinion.
So that's a little bit different than the scope of Moms for Liberty.
That's just kind of my personal opinion on what I'm watching here in the US.
[33:35] No, no, of course. We've also found that when parents have raised these issues, actually friends of mine have told me that the response from the school has been, if you continue to oppose the gender ideology being taught in a primary school, so for five to 11-year-olds, then we will report you to social services.
Those are church schools. So I guess in one way, parents will be concerned and afraid to engage with a school unless there is a backlash.
Because you talk about the difference between paying for the education and not here.
Generally, it's free.
Paid for education is a small minority.
But you don't want your child to be thrown out of a good school.
And you think, well, maybe I can't get them in to good school.
So I can see as a fallacy that maybe some parents just want to keep their heads down and think, kind of cross their fingers and hope it's okay.
That's not really a way of dealing with it.
[34:32] It's really not. And for even in the UK, like people have to organize. Your voice is always stronger together. One parent honestly can't make, I don't want to say that because I don't want to discourage people from getting involved. You should always stand up because the minute you stand up and are brave, more than likely someone will be brave with you. And then those two will be brave and then that should multiply to four and then to eight, etc. That's what we've seen in Moms for Liberty. But once you get those numbers, even if you don't vote in your school board members, but if you have a school, for example, and half of the parents are saying, this is not going to fly, people start to listen.
And so the only way we're going to make change around the world is for parents to pull together and stand up and just say no.
[35:17] And it seems to be a really dirty fight that we seem to have a group that are intent on how to go as far as sexually abusing children with teaching them, pushing something at them, which is not right.
Whether or not you agree they're not certainly for young children, it's not right. And then you can take a conversation with older children. But that sexualized content shouldn't have any place in with young children. But then the flip side, I remember when it was over last in the US talking to a taxi driver and he was saying, you know, he was talking about the De Santis, and saying, well, you know, I think, you know, children get exposed to a lot the internet and also we need to help them understand. And I said, but do you know what they're being taught? And there's that, I guess, confusion with parents, how they deal with the onslaught of technology. And maybe they do need to learn something and I guess there's a lot of confusion when parents look at and think it wasn't like this in my day.
[36:23] I think a lot of parents still don't know and they don't believe it. It's shocking.
You know, even when we get called names, when we are concerned about some of these books that have pornography, they say, Oh, you just want to ban books, you guys are book burners. I'm like, Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Actually, like, look, oh, let me show you. Here you go. And so I carry it with me now. And I'm like, Oh, we don't want to ban a book. But let me show you should this be in an elementary school? And I won't do it. Because I don't know if you have any I don't know who who watches your show, but the stuff in here is pornography.
It's been found in schools all across our country.
It's literally children performing sex acts on each other. And it was on display at a middle school.
So for 12 year olds in my community, and it's unacceptable.
It is just plain unacceptable. And so call me a book burner, make a meme about me burning books and a fire in my living room.
I don't care. I have no desire to ban any book. I think every book should be printed, published, sold, put it in our public libraries in the United States. You can even put it there.
[37:21] But don't put it in our schools, especially when only one third of American children are reading on grade level.
There is no need for this trash to be in there if kids can't even read.
This literally has like, oh gosh, I can't even show you. It's cartoony drawings.
You know, it's ridiculous.
And yet I've seen some school board meetings of parents reading out some of this and them being told stop it because it's not acceptable to read that out with adults.
Yet it is acceptable for children. I don't know how we've got to that level of confusion where adults say that's wrong with adults, but it's fine with children.
Truth is under attack. You know that.
[38:01] I know that. There is no truth anymore. I mean, there is truth, but people are so confused about everything. They don't know what to believe anymore. You know, when you don't even, when the Supreme Court justice on the United States Supreme Court can't articulate what a woman is, we are in a deficit of truth. And so everything is meant to be confusing and what we need are people to stand up and say, I know what's right. I know what's wrong. I know what truth is and say it loud and clear and boldly.
Look in the future and how you're growing Moms for Liberty. You mentioned about having international groups, UK groups. I mean, as you grow, you've gone much past Florida. So why stop on the US? Are you looking forward to take the model you have? Obviously with different education systems, different countries, there are different ways of tackling it, but what you've done is a model for how to take it elsewhere. Is that something you've thought about?
[38:59] It is we've had a lot of requests from other countries Canada, we get like a ton of requests to start trying to need help. Yeah, Canada's in really bad shape for sure. I think we've had a couple from the UK. We've had them from all over Europe. And here's the thing, if you've got a listener that could help us figure out how to do that legally, I am open to it. I say that, but I haven't talked to Tiffany, the co founder yet. I mean, I've mentioned it to her her once, and she was like, oh, I don't even know how to do that.
And so everything we've done so far, we have not known how to do, but we figured it out.
Again, like Tiffany said to me when we expanded to New York and throughout the country, this is not ours to keep. This is a movement.
This is not my business or my organization. It belongs to moms and parents and to truth and to reason.
And so if you've got a listener that knows how to do it, please connect me to them if they reach out to you because I would gladly, slowly expand into other places if people wanted to start.
I don't know if it'd be a chapter legally. I don't even know what the legal terminology would be, but I don't wanna keep the movement just to myself.
[40:05] Well, certainly to our viewers and listeners, if that's something you're interested in, I would encourage you to certainly email us directly, info at heartsofoak.org or drop us a DM on any of the, you can contact Moms for Liberty directly, but certainly if you're UK based and wanna contact us, we will happily look through those and see what we can do because we've always wanted to facilitate.
What are the six states or seven states you're still missing?
[40:33] Alaska, no one in Alaska, apparently, is a mom's city yet. And Idaho, which is surprising.
It's a pretty conservative state that has a lot of issues, but we don't have a chapter in Idaho yet.
[40:47] Maine is a tough state. I know that that one is there. That's three. I'm not sure, honestly.
There's some other smaller states. I don't know off the top of my head.
And as you grow, you mentioned the teacher training colleges and how I guess you're engaging with the parents. But then as that grows, then you will naturally have some look at there are other areas, the education that we can bring this understanding to. And teacher training colleges, Can you see a way of how you can raise people up to begin to get more involved there or how would that work?
I think that's somebody else's job. You know, we have a lot that we do and we are so overwhelmed and underfunded at this point that we try to stay within our scope.
There's a lot of work we want to do, especially, you know, we have the knowledge and experience to train school board members once we work to get elected.
We got 275 school board members elected last year, but we have no ability to support them once they're elected.
[41:49] So different organizations like Leadership Institute have launched a training program.
So luckily we were partnering with them. So once our people get elected, we're like, hey, go there and get trained.
And then honestly, they need an organization because we have school board member organizations in the United States that then support school board members.
But they're woke, they're completely captured. They're radicalized.
And so we also need someone to build that. I mean, all these things we could do, but I just don't have the capacity, the bandwidth.
I need other people to step up and really each level of this, including working with the teachers. I mean, we started here for a number of reasons.
[42:28] If we can get the kids, get the stuff out of the schools at a young age, and then they get to the teachers college, if it's still woke when they get there, at least hopefully they'll be able to think critically enough to think past some of the stuff they're being taught.
Okay. To finish off, probably a quarter of our listeners are US based and maybe a third of our viewers.
If someone is sitting in the US and watching or listening to this and think I wanna get involved, what is the best way for that?
Go to momsforliberty.org and hit join the fight. It's very easy.
Okay, that is simple and straightforward. We will leave it at that.. Tina, I appreciate your time.
Thank you so much for coming along and sharing with our viewers and listeners what you're doing with Moms for Liberty. Thank you.
Thank you, Peter. I appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much.
