Fox Nation gives anti-LGBTQ+ group “Most Valuable Patriot” award

Fox Nation, the Fox corporation’s online streaming companion to Fox News, recently gave the founders of the anti-LGBTQ+ “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty (M4L) a “Most Valuable Patriot” award. M4L has been described as an “extremist” group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for whipping up right-wing hysteria against LGBTQ+ content and anti-racism curriculum in schools.

Fox Nation gave the award to M4L co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich at the streaming network’s fifth annual Patriot Awards, held last Thursday at the Grand Ole Opry performance venue in Nashville, Tennessee.

Related: Moms for Liberty hires convicted child sex abuser to handle religious outreach

He was indicted for having oral and anal sex with a 14-year-old boy.

“Over the past few years, parents like us have lost confidence about what our kids are learning in the classroom, until one organization became a beacon of hope for the rest of us,” Fox News host and award presenter Sean Duffy said.

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His wife and co-presenter Rachel Campos-Duffy — a fellow Fox News host who opposes diversity curriculum in schools — said, “Moms for Liberty were founded by two moms who turned their mission of transparency in schools into a movement that was so powerful, they were called ‘domestic terrorists.'”

Her comment alluded to an oft-repeated Republican falsehood that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had once referred to “parents complaining” at a school board meeting as “domestic terrorists.” In reality, Garland said that some violent threats made against school officials “could be equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism.”

The awards show then showed a montage of numerous pro-LGBTQ+ and anti-racist protesters angrily demonstrating against M4L’s infiltration of school boards nationwide. The montage didn’t mention the group’s many actions against LGBTQ+ authors and trans-inclusive school policies.

In the montage, Justice called M4L a “non-profit, grassroots organization” to “protect” parental rights. However, the so-called “grassroots” organization has received support from the anti-LGBTQ+ think tank the Heritage Foundation, NPR reported, as well as from numerous anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans and right-wing media figures, according to Media Matters.

In the awards show montage, Descovich mentioned how M4L capitalized on parental opposition to school closures and mask mandates during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The montage then showed an M4L member calling schools “indoctrination camps and breeding grounds for hatred and division.” Another member in the montage said, “We need to focus less on hyper-sexualizing our students and focus more on raising our test scores and school ranking.”

The montage ended by showing an M4L group photo — nearly all the women in the photo were white.

While accepting the award, Descovich said, “We have the fundamental right given to us by God to raise our children to direct their upbringing, their education, their moral and religious upbringing. Once we let the government get in between us and our children, our families are done. Our country is at risk. This is the line in the sand. Moms for Liberty, moms across the country have drawn that line because we do not co-parent with the government.”

Descovich’s comment and M4L’s tactics echo that of Christian education activists who have encouraged parents to file lawsuits accusing public schools of violating their rights by teaching students about racial and LGBTQ+ issues. One goal of these lawsuits is to secure a U.S. Supreme Court victory that would redirect billions of taxpayer funds from public schools to religious homeschools and charter schools.

M4L’s past activities include offering bounties for turning in teachers who discuss “divisive topics,” attacking the Trevor Project for trying to prevent LGBTQ+ teen suicide, trying to get a book about seahorses banned for being too sexy, complaining about a book about the Civil War because it portrays “white people as ‘bad’ or ‘evil,’” trying to get librarians arrested for offering “inappropriate books,” saying that two girls briefly kissing at a school function is “lewd” and “traumatic,” lobbying in Florida for the Don’t Say Gay bill, encouraging schools to ignore LGBTQ History Month, and suggesting that LGBTQ+ students be forcibly isolated from other pupils.

An Indiana M4L chapter included a quote from Nazi leader Adolph Hitler in its newsletter. The chapter apologized but later defended the inclusion of the quote. A Philadelphia M4L chapter hired a convicted child sex abuser as its religious outreach coordinator.

Earlier this month, M4L school board candidates faced big defeats in at least four states’ elections. 

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