The head of Florida’s Republican Party, Christian Ziegler, is under criminal investigation after being accused of sexual battery.
According to The Sarasota County Police Department, his accuser claims that she’d been in a consenting “threesome type” relationship with Christian and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, for quite some time before the incident occured.
While Christian chairs the Florida GOP, Bridget sits on Sarasota County’s school board and co-founded the far-right group Moms for Liberty, an organization that advocates against any mention of LGBTQ rights, race, ethnicity, critical race theory, or discrimination in school curriculum.
Though Bridget is no longer with Moms for Liberty, she was the driving force behind Florida’s slogan “Don’t Say Gay”.
“We are currently investigating accusations made by a woman, whose name we are concealing at this time, of sexual battery at home with Christian and his wife on October 4,” authorities stated.
The word raped is included in the Sarasota Police Department’s report, though its context is also redacted. According to the report, an officer responded to the complaint on the same day it is alleged to have occurred.
A search warrant was executed on Christian’s cell phone and it was discovered that he had sexual videos that he secretly filmed during the “threesome” activities.
The allegations are startling not just for their context, but for the impact they could have on Florida politics, as the Zieglers have been integral in politicizing conversations around sex and sexual orientation. Both Christian, 40, and Bridget, 41, are close allies of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is now running for president, and his wife, Casey DeSantis.
The “Don’t Say Gay” bill they helped spearhead, formally titled “Parental Rights in Education,” blocks the classroom discussion of certain LGBTQ topics “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
The measure was first signed into law to govern grades K-3 and later expanded to apply to grades 4 through 12, as well.
The law has received widespread, national backlash, with critics saying it could have adverse effects on an already marginalized community.
However, many are standing firm and claiming what Ziegler does in the privacy of his own home behind closed doors, should not have any effect on outside people like DeSantis. It’s not DeSantis’s fault that he doesn’t know every single thing another couple is doing in secret.
After state lawmakers voted to strip the Reedy Creek Improvement District, a special zone enacted in 1967 that gives the company special privileges, including tax exemptions and certain autonomies like providing its own fire, police and other services such as building and maintaining roads, DeSantis signed the measure into law in February.
He then placed five new board members to oversee the district, one of them being Bridget Ziegler. DeSantis also personally endorsed Bridget for her current school board seat.
Bridget’s work in shaping Florida education has been used as a template of sorts for Republicans elsewhere. Last year, she was named vice president of the conservative nonprofit group Leadership Institute, where she oversees the training of others interested in running for school boards throughout the country.
On a campaign website, she describes her platform as one that advocates for “sexual education focused on biology, not pleasure or gender theory.”
