Ohio’s Proposed “Natural Family Month” Is A Step Backward. Guess Who’s Not Included.

A recent proposal from Ohio Republican lawmakers is drawing sharp criticism from LGBTQ+ advocates, single parents, and families across the state who say the legislation promotes one kind of family while ignoring many others.

House Bill 262, introduced by Reps. Beth Lear and Josh Williams, would designate the weeks between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day as “Natural Family Month.” The bill aims to promote what its sponsors describe as the traditional two-parent family structure in response to concerns about declining birth rates and social stability.

The bill does not include an explicit definition of “natural family,” but both sponsors have clarified their intent publicly. “The purpose of the month is to promote natural families—meaning a man, a woman, and their children—as a way to encourage higher birth rates,” Williams said in a statement to NBC News.

Supporters of the bill say it is meant to highlight what they consider a foundational family model. “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,” Lear said in a joint statement with Williams.

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The bill is backed by the Natural Family Foundation, a group that defines a natural family as one man and one woman “committed in a lifelong monogamous relationship” with their “biological or adopted children.” The group also states that “within the family there must be a clear male leader and that leader must come from the family’s lineage.”

Critics say the language and underlying message of the bill are exclusionary. Vanessa Melendez, a lesbian mother of two from College Hill, said the bill sends a message that some families are more valid than others.

“The elephant in the room on how they’ve positioned it is on the word ‘natural,’” Melendez told WLWT5. “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.”

Melendez and her wife are raising two children, including a 14-year-old stepson from a previous marriage and a 2-year-old daughter they adopted. She says families like hers deserve the same recognition.

“They’re really coming after it at a very narrow, exclusionary way, and they’re only giving a description of one type of family,” she said. “We don’t want to take away from that one type of family, but there’s so many other kinds of families.”

Dwayne Steward, executive director of Equality Ohio, called House Bill 262 a “calculated act of strategic erasure.”

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“It not only invalidates the existence of single parents and countless other caregivers, but it takes direct aim at LGBTQ+ families,” Steward told The Buckeye 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.”

Williams says the bill is part of a broader family-first agenda that includes over 35 pieces of legislation aimed at supporting parents and children. He argues that it is not intended to attack other types of families.

“By that same logic that all families should be celebrated,” he said, “you could go then to June and say we shouldn’t have Pride Month because all sexual orientation should be celebrated, not just those that are alternative to the mainstream.”

We hope there’s someone in Williams’ orbit to calmly explain that Pride Month acknowledges the history of discrimination, violence, and marginalization that LGBTQ+ people have faced. That it’s a time to affirm visibility and dignity for communities that have often been silenced and excluded, whereas “Natural Family Month” centers an already dominant social structure. Still, we’re not sure the message would land.

The bill is currently being reviewed by the Community Revitalization Committee. As debate continues, opponents are urging lawmakers to consider the diversity of modern family life in Ohio.