A Minnesota mom, yet unnamed, sparked controversy last week when she spoke at a school board meeting in Forest Lake on the topics of freedom of speech and religion.

Like most people who complain that their First Amendment rights are being violated, it’s clear that she doesn’t actually know what the amendment says. She believes that it means she’s free from consequences of any kind if she says awful things.

But then, that’s the story with most Republicans.

It was during a period of public input at the meeting that she began her tirade, saying “I was reading the harassment policy and I just wanted to share some concerns. I understand that there might be some legislative statute that you’re trying to meet with language but you do have a policy … that brings some concern to me that might be interpreted in a way that could violate religious freedom or freedom of speech because it’s so general.”

She was concerned that school policy may violate her religious freedom because she religiously believes it is wrong to address people with pronouns other than, presumably, what she assumes they should use. She doesn’t allow anyone to refer to her children by pronouns, she says, and she doesn’t allow her children to do it either, “because we’re all born male or female.”

Now, we know what she means — not that she doesn’t use ANY pronouns, but that she won’t be forced to use pronouns that a person prefers. And in her everyday life, she’s well within her rights to be a jerk if she wants to. I don’t know why grown adults who found a way to call a dude named Gordon “Sting” can’t extend the same courtesy to their marginalized neighbors, but she can do that if she wants.

School policies are a different story. She was livid:

No, ma’am. Nobody uses that word in that way, and certainly not you, unless you’re a firefighter. We all know it’s meant as a slur, and the fact that it started out as something else is about as useful as the fact that the Swastika used to be a Hindu symbol of well-being.

But then she starts sounding like she’s been listening to Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, who claimed that an anti-discrimination bill in Canada would get him thrown in jail if he accidentally called someone by the wrong pronoun. It was ridiculous enough when he claimed that, but MAGA Mom here is expressly saying she makes her kids misgender other people on purpose.

According to the Oxford Political Review:

[To] deliberately misgender someone is to know that such speech would cause them harm, and to do it anyway. It is capricious in its very nature. It is derogatory, because it targets an individual and denies them their fundamental right to equality by suggesting that their identity does not exist, and positively imposes on them another identity. It mocks them, by calling them something they are not (such as a ‘man in a wig’ rather than a woman). This is discrimination, because those whose gender identity aligns with the gender they were assigned at birth are referred to as such, while transgender persons are not afforded this right. It is discrimination because transgender persons who are misgendered deliberately in the public sphere are ostracized from their capacity to engage in public life by making that space hostile to them.

Of course, WE all know that. But MAGA Mom does not. “I am totally supportive in creating a great place for everybody, but I just think we have to be cautious that it’s not going to violate religious freedoms and freedom of speech,” she says. “An example of a violation of freedom of speech, I recently learned from one of my kids in high school that a word that I regularly use that I think is a regular word is apparently on the ‘don’t use’ list.”

She went on: “I can use the word ret*rd. OK, so this is one of those violations of freedom of speech that really concerned me. So, I really think there needs to be a lot more caution placed on specific parameters so that you respect those other constitutional rights.”

Nah, lady. That’s not how that works, we promise.

Fighting for their constitutional right to use slurs. So important. 🙄

— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) November 16, 2024

These people are raising kids to be just as cruel and misinformed as them 🤦‍♂️

— Ritley (@RitleySammich) November 16, 2024

One sarcastic commenter remarked on the fact that she insisted that the word still meant what it used to mean:

I applaud this woman. Did she also advocate for “fag” and “homo” to comeback by arguing that a “fag” is just a British term for a cigarette and “homo” just means the same?

“Can’t wait to get out of class and put a fag in my mouth.”

“I feel homo about you, too.”

— The Real Liekitisn’t (not Parody) (@liekitisnot) November 16, 2024

Eventually they will all FA enough to FO when their kid gets suspended.