Republican bill to launch ‘Natural Family Month’ sparks backlash from LGBTQ+ people
LGBTQ+ parents have hit out at a Republican bill to create a ‘Natural Family Month’. (Getty Images)
LGBTQ+ parents have hit out at a Republican bill to create a 'Natural Family Month'. (Getty Images)
A Republican bill in Ohio to launch a “Natural Family Month” has sparked backlash from the LGBTQ+ community.
More than 20 state lawmakers are pushing forward House Bill 262 which would designate the weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as “Natural Family Month”.
Ohio state representatives Beth Lear and Josh Williams defended the bill’s introduction by stating that it is about “promoting the economic and social stability that comes from raising children in healthy, two-parent households”.
As noted by a 2024 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, birth rates in the US fell to a historic low in 2023.
Lear wrote in a press release: “At a time when marriage is trending downward and young couples are often choosing to remain childless, it’s important for the State of Ohio to make a statement that marriage and families are the cornerstone of civil society, and absolutely imperative if we want to maintain a healthy and stable Republic.”
Bill intends to promote ‘natural families’
Williams added: “H.B. 262 is about more than policy — It’s about promoting the economic and social stability that comes from raising children in healthy, two-parent households. We must use every tool at our disposal to support the families that are building the next generation of Americans.”
The bill doesn’t define a “natural” family, but Williams told NBC News that the bill intends to “promote natural families — meaning a man, a woman, and their children — as a way to encourage higher birth rates”.
In response, the LGBTQ+ community has hit out at the bill, describing it as “exclusionary”.
Lesbian Vanessa Melendez, who is a married mother of two (an adopted daughter and stepson from a previous marriage), told WLWT5 that using the word “natural” exclusives families like hers.
“The elephant in the room on how they’ve positioned it is on the word ‘natural.’ And I think that what they’re saying is if there’s only one way to be a natural family, and that’s entirely not true.”
“They’re really coming after it at a very narrow, exclusionary way, and they’re only giving a description of one type of family,” Melendez added. “We don’t want to take away from that one type of family, but there’s so many other kinds of families.”
Williams has said the bill isn’t intended to be discriminatory, and he likened criticism of it to WLWT5 as hitting out at Pride Month “because all sexual orientation should be celebrated, not just those that are alternative to the mainstream”.
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