An Indiana branch of the national Moms for Liberty organization apologized Thursday for featuring a quote from Adolf Hitler on the front cover of its newsletter.
The Hamilton County chapter of the organization, recently listed as an “extremist group” by a civil rights watchdog launched the newsletter “The Parent Brigade,” Wednesday quickly drawing backlash on social media. Local politicians and candidates for elected offices added to the condemnation Thursday morning.
Moms for Liberty emailed IndyStar, a USA TODAY network paper, Thursday morning to post a statement on the group’s Facebook page condemning Adolf Hitler and apologizing for using the quote. A new version of the front page without the quote or explanation was uploaded.
“We condemn Adolf Hitler’s actions and his dark place in human history,” the statement from chapter chairwoman Paige Miller reads. “We should not have quoted him in our newsletter and express our deepest apology.”
The original pages of the newsletter, which were posted on the group’s Facebook page Wednesday night, showed below The Parent Brigade’s masthead a quote Hitler used at a Nazi rally in 1935: “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future.”
Late Wednesday night, after IndyStar initially published this story, the front page of the newsletter was updated to include what was described as “context” for the Hitler quote.
“The quote from a horrific leader should put parents on alert,” the update says. “If the government has control over our children today, they control our country’s future. We The People must be vigilant and protect children from an overreaching government.”
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Hamilton County politicians denounce use of Hitler quote
Both the Hamilton County Democrats and the chairman of the Hamilton County Republican Party denounced the quote in the newsletter.
“I think Adolf Hitler is terrible, and I would never quote Adolf Hitler or the Nazis in any shape or form other than saying they are bad or terrible,” said Mario Massillamany, chairman of the Hamilton County Republican party. “That was a terrible page in our world history and I don’t think that we as a society can say enough about the atrocities that the poor Jewish people had to go through.”
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Hamilton County Democrats in a statement highlighted messages from party candidates for office.
“We expect our leaders to not have an issue with saying Nazis are bad. Fascism is bad,” the party’s statement reads.
Below Hitler’s words on the original front page appeared a message from Moms for Liberty national co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich, with the headline: “Moms for Liberty will not be be intimidated by hate groups!”
Justice and Descovich appeared to be responding to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labeled the Florida-headquartered Moms for Liberty and 11 other right-wing “parents’ rights” organizations as extremist groups in its annual report, released earlier this month.
“(The movement) is primarily aimed at not wanting to include our hard history, topics of racism, and a very strong push against teaching anything having to do with LGBTQ topics in schools,” Susan Corke, an SPLC official, told USA TODAY.
Page 4 of the Parent Brigade included a mention of Hamilton County’s Carmel High School. The newsletter decried the school’s recent $10,000 award from the “It Gets Better Project,” a nonprofit organization whose stated mission is to uplift, empower and connect LGBTQ youth around the globe.
Money awarded to Carmel High School will be used to produce community-wide Pride events at the Carmel Pride festival happening June 25.
The Parent Brigade newsletter also called out sponsors of Carmel Pride, labeling the event “perversion.”
– Reporter Anthony Robledo contributed to this report