Moms for Liberty’s co-founder has refused to step down from her school board. (Getty)
The co-founder of Moms for Liberty (M4L) has refused to step down from her local school board despite all other board members voting in favour of her resignation.
Bridget Ziegler, who co-founded M4L – the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group and SPLC-designated extremist group – has been accused of major hypocrisy after admitting to having a same-sex encounter.
Ziegler revealed that she had engaged in a sexual encounter with a woman after that same woman accused her husband Christian Ziegler of rape.
Although Bridget Ziegler is not directly involved in the rape accusation, she did acknowledge that she and her husband had engaged in a three-way sexual encounter with the accusor at a different time.
That admission quickly sparked calls for Ziegler to step down from her seat on the Sarasota County School Board – not because she engaged in a same-sex encounter, but because it exposed her as a hypocrite.
As the co-founder of M4L, Ziegler had championed far-right education policies that marginalise the LGBTQ+ community and promoted Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill.
As a result, the Sarasota County School Board voted 4-1 on Monday night (11 December) in favour of Ziegler voluntarily stepping down.
But Ziegler, who cast the single vote in opposition, has refused to do so.
Only Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis has the power to force Ziegler to step down, but a vote to ask him to do so has also failed, the Washington Post reports.
Commenting on the board’s attempt to get her to resign, Ziegler said she was “disappointed” and she didn’t believe their resolution “does not have any teeth.”
Outside of the four-hour board meeting, members of the community held a protest calling for Ziegler to resign.
“These people are hurting,” one resident, Sandy Armstrong, told the Post.
Echoing these sentiments inside the meeting were representatives from LGBTQ+ advocacy groups like Equality Florida.
The group’s deputy director of development Nicholas Machuca said, per Advocate: “Now, let me be clear, participation in same-sex activities is not shameful.
“However, Bridget Ziegler has done this while simultaneously denigrating our community and working overtime to instill policies that directly marginalize us. That hypocrisy is unacceptable.”
The woman whom Ziegler acknowledged having a sexual encounter with has accused Christian Zielger, Florida’s GOP chair, of rape.
In her allegation, the unnamed woman claims that she and both Zieglers had organised to have a three-way sexual encounter, but she pulled out when Bridget Ziegler was no longer available, telling Christian Ziegler: “I was mostly in for her.”
She alleges that Christian Ziegler then came to her apartment anyway and sexually assaulted her. Ziegler has denied these allegations and insisted that the sexual encounter was consensual.
Like his wife, Christian Ziegler has ignored calls to resign from his position, despite mounting pressure to do so.