News/Commentary

‘The View’ co-host smears parental rights group as ‘extremist org’, Fox host fires back

September 9, 2023 | | Print Article

“The View” is facing heat again, this time for smearing Moms for Liberty as an “extremist organization.”

“Moms for Liberty has been found by the Southern Poverty Law Center [to be] an extremist organization because of what they’re doing with parental rights, anti-LGBTQ education, anti-African education,” co-host Sunny Hostin said, Fox News reported Saturday.

For reasons that remain unclear, Fox News didn’t specify when the comments by Hostin were made — Friday, Thursday, Wednesday? This month? Last month?

Regardless, responding on Thursday to Hostin’s remarks, Fox News’ “Fox News @ Night” host Trace Gallagher called them “preposterous” and the smear “almost laughable.”

Listen:

He also spoke with Vernadette Broyles, the president and general counsel of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign. She, too, pushed back on Hostin’s mischaracterization. But instead of going after Hostin, she went after the original source: the discredited Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

“The Southern Poverty Law Center has a three-page-long list of organizations that they call hate groups. It includes many churches, many Jewish organizations and advocacy organizations, legal organizations, anyone that they disagree with,” she said.

Fox News noted:

The SPLC recently named “Moms for Liberty” in their “Year In Hate and Extremism 2022” report released in June, attempting to pair the parental rights nonprofit with neo-Nazis and over a thousand other groups they deemed “extremist.”

 

Leftists like Hostin have misrepresented the group before:

“Bottom line, Moms for Liberty is standing up for the fundamental right of parents to be able to direct their child’s upbringing. They would not be doing this if it wasn’t instigated by school officials that did exactly what happened in Virginia to Sage,” Broyles told Gallagher this week.

Who is Sage? The granddaughter of Michele Blair, whom Fox News describes as “a Virginia [grand]mother who sued her [grand]child’s school, alleging that a high school intentionally concealed her [grand]child’s gender transition in school as they faced a mental health crisis.”

“The [grand]child later ran away from home, was kidnapped and sex-trafficked, according to the lawsuit,” Fox News notes.

The suit reportedly names Appomattox County School Board and district staff, who allegedly “deliberately concealed from [Blair] information related to her [grand]-daughter’s asserted gender identity,” and public defender Aneesa Khan, who’s been accused of misrepresenting the facts and trying to deprive Blair of her parental rights.

“Hiding from parents personal mental health decisions that directly affect a child, and when you drive a wedge between a child with their parents, you put that child in harm’s way such that what happened to Sage is more likely to happen, so now this school owns the damage that they have caused,” Broyles said.

According to The Christian Post, Blair is 14-year-old Sage’s grandmother. She and her husband have been Sage’s legal guardians since her father died when she was two.

“Sage reportedly had a history of mental health issues due to childhood trauma, and as she began experiencing puberty in 2019, the girl started feeling distressed about her body,” the Post notes, citing Blair’s lawsuit, which was filed last week.

The complaint says Sage started identifying as a boy during her freshman year at Appomattox County High School in August 2021.

The district school board and Superintendent Annette A. Bennett are listed as defendants in the filing. Other defendants include school counselors Dena Olsen and Avery Via and Aneesa Khan, a public defender.

“On Aug. 11, 2021, Sage told a friend she wanted to be called by a male name and pronouns. The complaint alleges that [school counselor Dena] Olsen later asked the teenager whether she identified as a girl or a boy. When the child replied that she identified as the latter, the counselor reportedly offered to let the girl use the boys’ bathroom without asking further questions,” according to the Post.

“The following day, Sage said during a meeting with [fellow school counselor Avery] Via and Olsen that she identified as a boy and wanted people to call her by a male name. Olsen did not address Sage by her chosen name when talking with Michele Blair about the student, nor did she disclose that the teenager was using male pronouns and using the boys’ restroom,” the Post notes.

All this reportedly led to Sage facing threats and harassment from the school’s unnerved boys. When she spoke to Olsen and Via about it, they continued to encourage her to “embrace” the transgender lifestyle and effectively transition.

Now fast-forward to Aug. 24th, when Sage told Olsen and another staff member that she’d been threatened, harassed and sexually assaulted while using the boys’ restroom. Despite this, Olsen still kept Sage’s transgender experimentation a secret from her mother.

“After Olsen, Via and a school police officer interrogated Sage about the assaults, Olsen informed Blair that the teenager had been using the boys’ restroom. However, she did not tell the student’s grandmother that her granddaughter had been using a male name and pronouns,” the Post notes.

“Furthermore, when questioned by Olson and a police officer, it was reportedly implied that the student fabricated the threats of rape and was pressured to recant her story,” according to the Post.

Blair ultimately didn’t learn about Sage’s transgender behavior until she found a hall pass with her granddaughter’s fake name on it.

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Vivek Saxena
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