In a Dig at Pride, Ohio Republicans Push ‘Natural Family Month’
The movement behind idea of "Natural Family Month" believes that only families headed by married heterosexual couples are valid.
To shamelessly troll the LGBTQ community’s Pride month of June, Ohio Republicans introduced a bill designating the period between Mother’s Day to Father’s Day as “Natural Family Month.”
Sponsored by State Reps. Beth Lear (R-Galena) and Josh Williams (R-Sylvania Township), the bill intends to honor Ohio families headed by a heterosexual couple in a lifelong, monogamous relationship. That means no single parents, no divorcees, and, by all means, no gays.
The bill has gained 26 additional Republican cosponsors and has been assigned to the Community Revitalization Committee.
A deeper explanation of the month is found on the website of the Natural Family Foundation, a Westerville, Ohio-based group whose goal is to “return the Natural Family to its rightful place as the Foundation of our American culture.”
According to NFF, “Natural Family Month” seeks to encourage only those relationships consisting of “one biological born man and woman in a lifelong, committed, monogamous relationship with their biological and/or adopted children.”
NFF proclaims that a family must have “a clear male leader (e.g. father, grandfather, uncle, male elder cousin) and that leader must come from the family’s lineage.” NFF claims any families not structured in that way cause undue stress on the marriage, children, and society at large.
According to NFF, the “natural family” is “the cornerstone of all civilization,” and alternative family structures must be rejected.
James Harrison, NFF’s executive director, told the Ohio State University newspaper, The Buckeye Flame, that the NFF is a group of people who share a common vision of what constitutes a “natural family.”
Harrison said that “Natural Family Month” is not meant to be derogatory, and is “no more or less different” than celebrations of Pride Month.
“If you’re going to celebrate gay Pride, then we’re going to celebrate the natural family,” he insisted.
Harrison also told the paper that being placed in a home with same-sex parents could confuse foster children who expect a mother and a father.
“It would be like telling our son that Santa Claus existed and then finding he doesn’t,” Harrison said.
(For the record: Santa Claus doesn’t exist. Sorry, James.)
In actual fact, according to an analysis by Cornell University, 75 of 79 same-sex parenting studies found that the children of same-sex parents fared no worse than any other children.
A recently published study, spanning over two decades, of the donor-conceived offspring of lesbian parents found that children — regardless of whether they were conceived using anonymous, known, or open-identity donors — grew up to be as well-adjusted as any others.
Dwayne Steward, the executive director of Equality Ohio, decried the bill and “Natural Family Month” as not only bad policy but a “calculated act of strategic erasure.”
“It not only invalidates the existence of single parents and countless other caregivers, but it takes direct aim at LGBTQ+ families across our state,” Steward told the Flame. “The so-called ‘Natural Family Foundation,’ the group pushing this legislation, has made their ideology clear: if you’re not a heterosexual, monogamous couple with children, you don’t count as a family at all.”
Steward added, “As an adoptive parent, myself, I feel this erasure personally. This bill is not just offensive; it’s dangerous.”
Densil Porteous, the executive director of Stonewall Columbus, which houses the Family Pride Network, said that the bill is a “coded effort to undermine and invalidate families” headed by LGBTQ individuals, noting that the bill’s sponsors timed its introduction to coincide with June’s Pride Month festivities.
Porteous said that LGBTQ families are just as deserving of recognition and celebration as those headed by heterosexual couples.
“This June, and every month, we stand proudly with LGBTQ+ families across Ohio and beyond,” he said. “Our families are natural. Our families are strong. And our Pride for our families is unwavering.”
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