Shocker: Leader For Moms For Liberty Is A Convicted Sex Offender
Moms for Liberty conference in PhiladelphiaCredit: Getty images
November 21, 2023

You knew it all along, right? Moms for Liberty just had to have a child molester in its ranks or something along those lines. It just had to be. Any group that is laser-focused on other Americans' sexual activities just isn't playing with a full deck. For example, it wouldn't dawn on me to question the leader of the Moms for Liberty group's sexual activities.

However, after reading about Phillip Fisher Jr., a pastor and Republican ward leader coordinating faith-based outreach for Philadelphia's Moms for Liberty chapter, I wonder if we shouldn't be more curious about their husbands' activities. Fisher Jr. is a staunch Trump supporter, a Black conservative who has compared Barack Obama to a Nazi; Hitler, to be specific.

What a background he has, and it was all just a misunderstanding:

Via

The Philadelphia Inquirer:

He's also a registered sex offender due to a 2012 felony conviction for aggravated sexual abuse of a 14-year-old boy when Fisher was 25.

Fisher insists that he did nothing wrong, despite pleading guilty to one of 12 counts filed against him after an investigation by the Chicago Police Department, according to court records obtained by The Inquirer.

Fisher was living in Chicago at the time. But he's from Philadelphia and has since returned and become active in local politics.

He is the pastor at the Center of Universal Divinity in Olney and works with Moms for Liberty, a national conservative organization that bills itself as a defender of parental rights, by connecting the Philadelphia chapter with other local faith leaders in an effort to grow the group.

Parental rights. I keep hearing that phrase thrown around lately.

He repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and called his conviction "one blip" in his background. He blamed it all on a dispute about his trying to break away from the LaRouche organization and said the 14-year-old boy and his parents were part of that group.

"It was a political situation that happened between me and Lyndon LaRouche," Fisher said. "It was a member of his camp, his party, that made the accusation. They pushed it through. It was really a railroad job."

Documents from the Cook County Clerk of Circuit Court show that a grand jury there indicted Fisher in January 2011 on 12 felony counts of sexual assault and aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Fisher waived his right to a jury trial 15 months later and was adjudicated guilty on one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor between the ages of 13 and 17.
The charging documents allege that Fisher had oral and anal sex with the 14-year-old boy in January 2011.

Those documents don't say how Fisher met the 14-year-old, how the case came to the attention of law enforcement or any defense Fisher offered in the case before pleading guilty.

He was sentenced to three years in prison and given credit for nearly 20 months he spent in jail waiting for his case to come to court, followed by two years of supervised release.

Fisher said he took the plea bargain to get out of the county jail, where he said he experienced violence from other prisoners.

"I actually broke down," he said. "I said I'll do whatever I have to do to get out of there."
Fisher said he went to Illinois "through the LaRouche organization," in a case of what he called human trafficking.

"At the time, I was the victim," Phillips said. "What they did was basically trumped up charges to drown out the complaints that I was making on human rights issues."

Two photos published on the website of the visual media company Getty Images corroborate that he worked with the LaRouche campaign, as they show Fisher protesting outside of a town hall meeting about health care at a Chicago church in August 2009 on behalf of LaRouche's political action committee.

In the photos, Fisher held a large poster with a picture of then-President Barack Obama defaced to add a mustache like the one made infamous by Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany.
Fisher confirmed for The Inquirer that he is the person in those photos.

Fisher is registered on a sex offender list kept on a website maintained by the Illinois State Police, which includes his photograph and information that the victim in the case was 14 years old.

That information is also listed on the National Sex Offender Website maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice.

While Fisher's background came as a shock to people who work with him, he noted that the information was always publicly available.

"I never went out of my way to hide anything," he said. "I'm in the database. It's an easy search."

I don't think that last point helps his case. And if he's easily persuadable by cults, maybe he should stay away from cultish groups if he's that easily manipulated. Moms, you wanted our attention. You got it. Now, if you could just unclench your little fists from those books you have a profound interest in banning, that would be a good start.

As the product of someone who grew up in an Evangelical home, this next part gave me the sickies. And it brought back a few memories of that church and state line that should never be crossed:

Fisher has supported Trump’s campaigns; a 2020 report by WHYY included a mural in support of Trump that Fisher said was painted on an exterior wall of his church by children he worked with in his congregation.

And as for the group's bizarre focus on drag queens, and trans individuals, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Fisher, Jr. was a guest on 1210 WPHT last fall after campaigning with Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz. I'm sure you remember Oz. Republicans thought he was better suited for the job because Fetterman had recently had a stroke.

I'm not painting all Republicans as sex offenders. I'm just noticing a pattern here.

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