Tom Edwards, a member of the Sarasota County School Board, has called on fellow board member Bridget Ziegler to resign. There have already been a flood of calls for Ziegler’s husband Christian to resign as chairman of the state Republican party. But Christian Ziegler is the focus of a criminal investigation into whether he raped an as yet unnamed woman. Bridget Ziegler has not been accused of any crime. Her role in the scandal engulfing the couple is tied to her being an anti-gay, anti-trans crusader who had sex at least once with another woman, in a threesome with her husband. So hypocrisy, basically.
Edwards, who is openly gay, and Ziegler have sparred before. Back in March he walked out of a school board public comment session after Ziegler, then the board chair, allowed members of the public to accuse Edwards of being an “LGBT groomer” and a pedophile. She said, rather lamely, that politicians get attacked all the time and that it would have escalated tensions to stop the commenters from attacking Edwards.
In calling for Ziegler’s resignation Edwards pointed to a mix of hypocrisy and just the overall spectacle the Ziegler’s have become. He said he’d been getting calls from constituents demanding Ziegler’s resignation. “She is nothing but a distraction from before and only getting worse, and it will never go away as long as she sits there,” Edwards said. “As a School Board member, my focus is on our students, their academic achievement and educational outcomes. It is not on the Zieglers’ escapades.”
Current board chair and fellow conservative Karen Rose has also called on Ziegler to resign. She has asked the school superintendent to schedule a vote demanding Ziegler’s resignation at the board’s next meeting on Tuesday.
