Moms for Liberty Co-Founder Admitting to Threesome Sparks Backlash

Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler's admission to having a sexual relationship with the woman accusing her husband of rape has sparked backlash online Saturday, with many labeling the Florida political leader a hypocrite.

Bridget Ziegler's husband, Christian Ziegler, is the head of the Florida Republican Party and is currently embroiled in a sexual assault investigation. On Friday, it was reported that an unnamed woman claiming to be a friend of the Zieglers filed a report with the Sarasota Police in early October claiming that Christian Ziegler had come to her apartment and raped her, after a planned threesome between the victim and the couple fell through after Bridget Ziegler became busy at the last minute.

Christian Ziegler and his attorney have denied any wrongdoing on his part, but security footage obtained from the victim's apartment has shown that he was at the building on the date of the alleged assault. Admissions to law enforcement from his wife have also complicated the matter.

As revealed in recently released court documents, Bridget Ziegler was interviewed by investigators in early November, confirming that she, her husband, and the victim had been friends and had engaged in a consensual sexual encounter roughly a year prior to the assault that the victim now alleges.

This revelation caused a stir online, with numerous voices accusing the Zieglers of hypocrisy, given their espousal of conservative "family values" and opposition to LGBTQ+ communities.

"If you wrote this into the plot of your book, you'd be accused of being too predictable," former U.S. attorney and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance wrote on X, the platform previously known as Twitter, on Saturday. "But truly, someone should do a reality tv show on the hypocrisy of conservatives."

"The wife is on the grift," X user Judith Haney wrote in response to Vance. "That is what is driving their hypocrisy. In fact that is what drives all "conservatives."

"So, according to the police report, both the husband and wife - who helped found Moms for Liberty - acknowledge they participated in a threesome," Orlando Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell wrote in a post of his own. "Family values indeed."

"This entire time terrorist hate group Moms For Liberty has attacked the LGBTQ+ community just for living all whilst their cofounder was caught in a bisexual threesome with her Florida GOP husband who's now criminally charged with abusing the woman involved," musician and outspoken political commentator Ricky Davila wrote. "F***ing hypocrites."

Initially founded in 2021 in opposition to COVID-19 safety measures in schools, Moms for Liberty is a conservative political activism group that purports to work in support of parental rights, though the pro-LGBTQ+ group GLAAD has characterized its work as "calls for book bans, classroom censorship, and bans on teaching about slavery, race, racism, and LGBTQ people and history." GLAAD also questioned the group's characterization of itself as a grassroots operation, noting its major political connections, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other "national anti-LGBTQ groups."

While Bridget Ziegler was among the original three co-founders of Moms for Liberty, she had departed the group by late 2021, a fact that the group stressed after being reached for comment on the situation by Newsweek on Sunday.

"Bridget was an original founder of Moms for Liberty but she stepped back from the organization's management board in 2021," co-founders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich said in a statement.

Updated 12/3/23; 4:47 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include a response from Moms for Liberty.