Moms for Liberty takes New York for America's 250th birthday bash

The guests all met in their finery at Battery Park while regular New Yorkers in their Saturday afternoon best glanced at the parade, the signs waved by the Liberty crown-wearing guides, and smirked away. The 600 guests were gathered to board a boat for Ellis Island, where the non-profit was hosting a bash to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. The British took the harbor in 1776 and used New York City as their base of operations for the Revolutionary War, but Saturday night, it was all about Moms for Liberty.

The group of happy warriors have had 565 school district wins across the US since their founding just five years ago, and in that time, they have been both beloved by common-sensical parents and derided by the radical left. Moms for Liberty chapters were even named as a "hate group" by the now-indicted SPLC alongside Charlie Kirk and so many others who didn't deserve it. Speakers at the event were not afraid of that label, Glenn Beck, Harmeet Dhillon, Elijah O'Neal and others stood up for parents, moms, and kids and in so doing, America, when they took the stage.

Cameramen and tuxedoed gents alike boarded Miss Ellis Island for the short trip across the harbor to the festivities at the museum that symbolizes the American immigrant experience. Three sets of my great-grandparents came through Ellis Island, my first Norwegian ancestors in the New World have their names engraved on the wall. Those who stepped foot ashore this tiny island, the myth of our immigration story goes, were in search of a new life, looking to become part of our burgeoning nation.

The boat went past Ellis Island and to the Statue of Liberty, slowing for a better view and selfies. Everyone clamored to get in a pic with Lady Liberty, and she was beautiful at sunset. As we came back to Ellis Island, docking at the pier, actors from the island's long-running Actors Equity show, in period dress, in character, and with old, beat-up leather suitcases rushed to greet each other. "Welcome to America!" They shouted, embracing.

I used to have friends in that show and would come out to the island on a summer afternoon and picnic on the grass. I was glad to see the show was still going. It's one of the few day-in-day-out acting gigs in New York City where an actor can actually make a living.

The wall with names of immigrants circles around the courtyard and I stood gazing at it with a couple who told me their parents, respectively, came through these doors and embarked on their life in America. I met another woman who was beautifully dressed in a white, vintage gown who told me her grandmother made it, absolutely stunning. 

We stood around chatting, having cocktails, eating passed hors d'ouvres, in the same halls where a century before so many of our ancestors had walked. We stood there snacking where our ancestors landed. They didn't know the language. They didn't know the customs. They didn't know what awaited them after they'd been processed, let loose into the country to make their own way. There's something amazing about that, standing here where our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents stood, knowing that their big risk—coming here with nothing but a dream and some hustle—paid off. We are the result of that.

Moms for Liberty co-founder and Executive Director Tina Descovich spoke on what the group is about and what they're fighting for. It's all about parental rights. "That is the issue of our democracy," she told the assembled, "that once you're not allowed to raise your children according to your values and your morals, you're not allowed to direct their education, their medical care, and their religion, your family is broken." 

Moms for Liberty has famously said "we don't co-parent with the government." Once government controls education, religion, medical care, and all the rest of it, families are no longer autonomous but simply part of a government machine, and there's nothing American about that. When Descovich started Moms for Liberty, she was seeing that parental rights were under assault by the government. Parents were being shut out of their children's education and medical choices. 

The story of our ancestors' immigration is a story about overcoming, risk-taking, and assimilation. It's a story of taking everything you've got and striking out, taking a chance on yourself. That's what Moms for Liberty is about, too, what we can give, what we can do with our two hands.