UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The controversial right-wing “Moms” group planning a town hall at a beloved Upper East Side cultural center will not be canceled — but not for lack of trying, according to the venue’s president.
Neighbors and election officials have called on the Bohemian Benevolent & Literary Association on East 73rd Street to cancel a town hall for the troubled, right-wing Florida-based “Moms for Liberty” ever since the book-banning parent’s rights group first booked the event at the normally apolitical venue earlier this month.
Joseph Balaz, the president of the Bohemian Hall — as it is colloquially known — said that their attorneys concluded that the controversial right-wing “Moms For Liberty” town hall planned for Thursday must to go on.
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“We concluded that we are not in any position to break the contract,” Balaz said of the attorney’s advice.
Balaz added that “this particular group clearly does not fit our strong non-political stance.”
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“Furthermore, as a first-generation immigrant who years ago escaped a dictatorship and absolute censorship,” Balaz said, “I am personally very sensitive to concepts like book banning, thought, and expression controls, and so on, which this highly politically charged turmoil around this event brings out.”
The group’s rental fee from their reservation will also be matched personally by Balaz and donated to a group supporting young leaders, the president said.
At least one Upper East Sider isn’t buying Balaz’s explanation for why they must host the extremist, sex-scandal plagued right-wing group.
“Perhaps [the] Bohemian Hall should invest in better counsel,” neighbor and former City Council candidate Chris Sosa told Patch.
“I find it difficult to believe that the Hall cannot cancel an event sponsored by a hate group, even if that means incurring a financial penalty,” Sosa said. “In fact, I don’t believe it at all – and neither will the scores of outraged New Yorkers planning to show up in protest of this hate event.”
A protest on Thursday is planned and will feature outraged elected officials, including Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, Rep. Jerry Nadler, State Senator Liz Krueger, Assembly Members Alex Bores and Rebecca Seawright and City Council Members Julie Menin and Keith Powers.
Last week, both Menin and Powers wrote a letter to Balaz, imploring him to cancel the event.
Defense of Democracy, a group formed in response to a 2022 effort by Moms For Liberty to take over the Wappingers school boards in the Hudson Valley, said that while they appreciated the “sincerity” of Balaz’s statement, they would still be protesting on Thursday as well, “equally passionate and sincere.”
And they’re bringing a coalition of Hudson Valley parents who have already faced off with Moms For Liberty.
An Upper East Side teacher first reached out to Defense of Democracy for help, said the group’s president, Karen Svoboda, who immediately got to work contacting members and other organizations to come join the downstate demonstration.
“People don’t think of it,” Svoboda told Patch. “You think you’re in this bubble, and you’re really not.”
“Moms For Liberty is well-funded, politically-backed astroturf group,” Svoboda said. “So whenever a place wants to host a Moms For Liberty meeting, we’re there, and we protest, and we try to get it shut down, and hopefully more places will actually say: ‘Okay, I’m not hosting a fascist group.'”
Back in early January, the group had booked one of the hall’s “smaller rooms” for a three-hour event, Balaz said.
The Bohemian Hall occasionally rents their space to outside groups, and typically just rubber-stamps the booking. Many of the events held at the spaces are for small local non-profits or community groups that in the past never required any vetting.
“We have never had a mechanism in place to pre-screen event sponsors and never felt the need to do so,” Balaz said.
But when Moms For Liberty booked their town hall, it “inadvertently stirred up quite a bit of controversy,” Balaz’s statement read.
The booking, Balaz told Patch, was “absolutely not intentional.”
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In the future, Balaz said to Patch, the Hall will be updating their booking procedure to prevent “any political or biased events taking place at our beloved facility.”
“This will be extended to our contract material as well,” Balaz told Patch. “This will cover all spaces, big and small.”
“We cannot wait to return to fulfilling our core mission of producing beautiful programs,” Balaz said.
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