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| Rep. RJ May |
The 2023 Moms for Liberty "Legislator of the Year" was former South Carolina state Rep. RJ May (R-West Columbia). He was recently in the news for pleading guilty to federal charges related to distributing child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
Key Details
Award: May received the 2023 "Legislator of the Year" award from the South Carolina chapter of Moms for Liberty for his work in "defending parental rights".
Arrest and Charges: In June 2025, May was indicted on 10 counts of distributing child sexual abuse material.
Guilty Plea: In September 2025, May pleaded guilty to five federal counts of distributing CSAM, with the other five counts dropped as part of a plea bargain.
Controversy: The news of his crimes led to widespread criticism, noting the hypocrisy of a "family values" politician who frequently attacked the LGBTQ+ community for allegedly "harming" children being the one involved in sex crimes.
Current Status: May resigned from his seat and is currently in custody pending sentencing in January 2026. He faces a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and up to 20 years on each count.
Moms for Liberty is a conservative parents' rights group that the Southern Poverty Law Center has categorized as an extremist group. They are known for their efforts to ban books and influence school board elections.
To make it worse, apparently, May was under investigation for distributing child porn for over a year before he got the Moms award, and the South Carolina chapter knew he was under investigation. (link)
I have mixed views of Moms for Liberty. I would like for parents to have more influence in schools, and I think normalization of diviancy and gender dysphoria should not occur in public schools. There are some books that I think should be removed from school library bookshelves. However, I don't want what is stocked in school libraries to be decided by the most engaged who show up at School Board Meetings. Since a library cannot stock every book published, it is not "banning" to choose to stock one book over another.
That being said, I have seen the list of books they try to remove, and it is not porn we are talking about. If I had a teen reading The Kite Runner or Where the Crawdads Sing, I would not be alarmed. I would be pleased he is reading.
I attended one Moms meeting in Brentwood a few years ago, and they had blown-up pages of books they found offensive on display. One was a frontier adventure story, featuring Indians on the warpath and raiding settlers. Moms objected because it contained violence, such as scalping. I would have loved that book as a kid. I recall that when I was in about the sixth grade, I read a series of books about American heroes, such as Davy Crockett and Kit Carson and Daniel Boone. I loved them. They contained violent conflict and people died. I don't think schools should shield children from the harsh realities of history.
Another book Moms wanted to ban was the story of Ruby Bridges, the first African American child to attend a formerly whites-only school. It is a true story and children should not be shielded from it.
I don't doubt there are some woke teachers pushing their ideology onto kids and molding them into good little liberals with a brain full of mush and a load of White guilt. I don't think school classrooms should fly the Pride rainbow flag and teach that Heather Has Two Mommies. Some of the books Moms have exposed and opposed are age-inappropriate, in my view. I want engaged parents pushing back against that. However, I think Mom's for Liberty goes too far. To be fair, I do not have children or grandchildren in public schools so I don't know how bad this woke indoctrination is, but I try to stay informed. However, I don't quite trust Moms to tell me how bad it is. From what I do know about them, they seem a little too prudish, alarmist, dogmatic and excitable for my taste.
On the other hand, when the Southern Poverty Law Center calls Moms for Liberty a hate group, it makes me want to send them a donation. The SPLC tends to label pro-life, pro-normalcy, Christian groups as hate groups. It you are not a woke progressive, SPLC wants you to sit down and shut up and will label you a hate group if you don't keep quiet. You do know that the Southern Poverty Law Center has also been labeled a hate group, don't you? Yes. I just labeled it as such.
Back to the issue at hand. This scandal of the SC legislature of the year being a pervert is not the first scandal associated with Moms. Back in 2023, the Florida Republican Party State Chairman, Christian Ziegler, who has been accused of raping a woman who claimed to have been involved in a long-term threesome relationship with Christian Ziegler and his wife Bridget Ziegler, was removed as Chair of the Florida Republican Party. Bridget Ziegler is the co-founder of Moms for Liberty.
I don't know what to make of this. Is it an aberration or is it statistically significant that a number of activists for morality are themselves deeply flawed? I remember the televangelist scandals of a few decades ago. I was living a more spiritual life at that time and was involved in my faith and regularly attending church. Some of the TV preachers exposed as immoral, I had no respect for and never had confidence in, such as Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. Jimmy Swaggart, on the other hand, I really believed was sincere and good, some might say "godly," man. I hated to learn that he was a frequent customer of prostitutes. And then of course we had the worldwide scandal of the Catholic priests who were pedophiles. I keep thinking of other examples. This could go on for a while.
When those who are prudish and sanctimonious are exposed as libertines or perverts, part of me wants to say, "See! You are a bunch of hypocrites." The other part of me feels sad.
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For more on Mon's for Liberty, see below:
- The Disgruntled Republican in Nashville: Moms for Liberty's complaint about age-appropriateness and context of material taught to 2nd graders dismissed without a hearing.
- The Disgruntled Republican in Nashville: Republicans, Rape, Moms for Liberty, and Threesomes
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