The hypocrisy of moral piety affects speech in Iowa

On a brisk Monday in February, Bridget Ziegler stood on a Des Moines stage before a gathering of Iowa’s Republican lawmakers and governor to “give Iowa a major shoutout for leading the way in education freedom.” She and other Floridians from the national “Moms for Liberty” organization were in town to champion its agenda of school privatization and book bans.

Last week Ziegler made news with her husband, Christian, after he was accused of sexually assaulting a woman with whom the couple admitted to previously having a three-way sexual relationship. He has called the Oct. 2 encounter consensual. Sarasota police are investigating. But Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has close political ties with both Zieglers, has called for Ziegler to resign as chair of the Florida Republican Party.

Political chatter has focused on how Republican DeSantis’ connections to the couple, both described as “leading advocates for his education culture war agenda,” could hurt De Santis’ presidential aspirations. Among those ties, DeSantis appointed Bridget Ziegler to a board overseeing the special tax district governing Central Florida’s Disney company after she defended DeSantis’ Florida law limiting discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. Disney had opposed the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law.

Reynolds has quipped about competing with DeSantis — who seems to have made Iowa his second home in advance of Iowa’s Republican caucuses — to get such conservative laws passed here, and claimed she was winning. There’s speculation she’s interested a position in a DeSantis administration.

The broader conversation this week focuses on the hypocrisy of the moral piety and anti-gay stance projected by the Zieglers in light of their ménage à trois disclosures. But the broader issue is how Ziegler’s inauthentic anti-LGBT stance within Moms for Liberty has been allowed to affect free speech in Iowa. It’s a cynical tale of symbiotic relationships between politicians and activists who willingly sell out marginalized populations for causes they may not subscribe to themselves, unconcerned with who is hurt. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists Moms as a hate group, for anti-LGBT and racist policies.

The Never Back Down super PAC supporting DeSantis' campaign formed an Iowa chapter, "Iowa Parents Never Back Down" which as of February, MFL had five Iowa chapters. The 2021 elections swept a wave of Moms for Liberty-backed candidates onto Iowa school boards. Once seated, in the name of parental rights, they set about tampering with those of students.

With the movement’s backing, Reynolds was able to get Iowa legislators to pass Senate File 496, one of the nation’s strictest school book bans. She signed it into law

in May. It forbids both school libraries and curricula from giving any space to books or conversation on sexual and gender identity before seventh grade. When the law takes effect in January, the only depictions of sex allowed will be in human growth and development materials and – this could have some heads scratching – religious publications such as the Bible. The law even dictates which bathrooms transgender students can use.

Its impact will weigh heaviest on gay and trans students who will learn they must stay invisible and ignorant of others like them. And on Black students who will find their ancestors’ horrific experiences of enslavement don’t even merit classroom time. And on teachers who will be barred from maintaining confidentiality when their students share something personal they fear telling their parents.

According to the Des Moines Register, more than 540 books have already been removed from Iowa public schools. Despite the exception, Dallas-Center Grimes Community Schools even removed an illustrated anatomy book from its shelves. Significantly two of Dallas Center-Grimes’ voting school board members were elected with Moms for Liberty support.

A lawsuit brought by The American Civil Liberties Union, Iowa Safe Schools and Lambda Legal on behalf of eight Iowa students and their families contends the new law discriminates against LGBTQ students and violates their rights, including to free speech.

Another suit by the Iowa State Education Association, Penguin Random House and four authors of banned books argues the state's rationale of protecting children from pornography is a pretext since the law’s depiction of pornography doesn’t meet the U.S. Supreme Court's definition of obscenity.

Listening to the almost heady rhetoric coming out of the Feb. 2 Moms for Liberty gathering you could imagine getting swept up in the case for protecting children if you didn’t know better. But if you really listened, or studied the group’s origins, you’d learn the national organization got its start opposing school closures during COVID, closures intended to protect students and teachers. The group’s calls for further eroding the constitutional separation of church and state bore fruit in Iowa with Reynolds’ sweeping school privatization law. Rather than liberating anyone, the Moms for Liberty would hold students, families and teachers hostage to a narrow band of ideologically based lawmakers’ whims.

Ideas and opinions are of course not limited by geography. But when presidential candidates and special interest money come into a state and tap into the political aspirations of its elected officials, it can set changes in motion.

Though Moms for Liberty candidates scored unexpected victories in Iowa in 2021 elections, they lost ground in this November’s, showing the group’s priorities ultimately lack a mandate from Iowans. But the damaging fallout continues.

Rekha Basu has been a longtime newspaper columnist, editorial writer and reporter, working in Iowa, Florida and New York. She retired last year after 30 years as a Des Moines Register opinion columnist.