School board votes for co-founder of hate group to resign due to queer sex scandal. She’s refusing.

Bridget Ziegler, co-founder of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate group Moms for Liberty, has refused to resign from Florida’s Sarasota Count School Board despite the entire board voting in favor of her resignation.

Ziegler – who championed Florida’s Don’t Say Gay bill and is a leader in the so-called “parent’s rights” movement against LGBTQ+ youth – recently admitted to engaging in a sexual encounter with a woman after that woman accused Ziegler’s husband of rape.

Related:

Moms for Liberty claims they’re “truly shaken” by rape allegations after first dismissing them

One Moms for Liberty insider says more local chapters will split as the scandal engulfs the extremist organization.

While Ziegler has not been implicated in her husband’s alleged crime, many have accused her of hypocrisy for campaigning against LGBTQ+ rights while engaging in a threesome with her husband and another woman.

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The school board voted 4-1 on Monday night that Ziegler should voluntarily step down (the dissenting vote was her own). The board cannot, however, force her to do so; only Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has that power.

“Just one more time, this does not have any teeth,” Ziegler said of the resolution during the school board meeting.

Some board members, including Democrat Tom Edwards, proposed sending a letter to DeSantis asking him to force Ziegler to step down.

She is “the distraction de jour in the long list of distractions that has kept the board drama-focused instead of student centric-focused,” Edwards said at the meeting.

A protest calling for Ziegler to resign took place outside the meeting while many public commenters inside expressed similar sentiments.

“Now, let me be clear, participation in same-sex activities is not shameful,” Nicholas Machuca, Equality of Florida’s deputy director of development stated. “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.”

But not everyone believes resignation is the best course of action. A recent editorial by the Miami Herald Editorial Board acknowledges that Ziegler is “a dangerous hypocrite” but says hypocrisy is not a “disqualifier” from holding office.

The board asserted that putting pressure on Ziegler to step down even though she has not been accused of a crime is “against democratic principles.”

“Democracy is often messy, but that does not entitle those who are appalled by the Zieglers’ conduct — or the policies she’s promoted — to demand she abdicate an elected position,” the board continued. “Voters are the ones who should hold her accountable.”

The board also pointed out that even the governor’s role in suspending elected officials is based on whether they’ve committed “malfeasance, misfeasance, neglect of duty, habitual drunkenness, incompetence or permanent inability to perform official duties.”

“That is not Ziegler’s case,” they said. “Her misdeeds fall in the category of hypocrisy and sanctimoniousness, which is not uncommon for politicians who like to preach about morality. Unless Ziegler is implicated in the ongoing criminal investigation, she should not have to take the fall for her husband’s alleged actions and should resign based on her own volition.”

The woman who accused Ziegler’s husband, Florida GOP chair Christian Ziegler, of rape told investigators that she and both of the Zieglers had planned a sexual encounter for October 2. But when Bridget Ziegler was no longer available, the woman canceled, saying, “I was mostly in for her.”

She then alleges that Christian Ziegler came to her apartment and assaulted her. Christian Ziegler has admitted they had sex in her apartment but claims it was consensual. Bridget Ziegler has since admitted to detectives that she, her husband, and her husband’s accuser were involved in a consensual sexual encounter over a year ago.

In the wake of the scandals, Bridget Ziegler has resigned from her role as director of the School Board Leadership Program at the Leadership Institute, an organization that trains conservative activists. Christian Ziegler has refused to resign as chair despite immense pressure to do so.

Chaos has also begun to reign on Moms for Liberty. A Pennsylvania chapter recently split from the national organization. Clarissa Paige, chair of the Northumberland County chapter, is planning to turn the local group into the Northumberland County Academic Alliance. Paige said that, based on private discussions going on among the chapters, more are likely to defect.