By Hunter Hines
Christian Action League
December 9, 2020
It didn’t seem to receive much attention, which is a good thing. But Governor Roy Cooper signed a proclamation Friday of last week that made Sunday, December 6, Gender Expansive Parent’s Day.
The day is meant to celebrate LGBTQ parents who do not identify as mothers or fathers. The Proclamation’s problem is that it promotes the assertion that children do not need both a mother and a father.
The Governor’s Proclamation states the following:
“Whereas all parents, regardless of gestational relationship to a child, gender identity, or gender expression, deserve to be celebrated for the love and the nurturing they give to their children; and
“Whereas, at least two million children in the United States have a parent that identifies as LGBTQ; more than 400,000 children have a foster parent that identifies as LGBTQ; and
“Whereas, LGBTQ people are six times more likely to foster children and four times more likely to adopt children into their families; and
“Whereas, increasingly, many of these LGBTQ parents also exist outside a traditional gender binary; and
“Whereas, terms like non-binary, gender-expansive, and agender are used to describe a spectrum of gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine; and
“Whereas, parenting for those who do not identify as mothers or fathers can be isolating due to lack of public parenting communities, adequate parenting support systems, healthcare disparities, and legal discrimination in adoption and child custody; and
“Whereas recognition of the work and sacrifice of non-binary, agender, and other gender expansive parents, as well as that of other non-traditional primary caregivers, is key to our efforts to create a more inclusive State; and
“Whereas, the State of North Carolina recognizes any supportive relationship that a child has with their parent and honors gender-expansive parents;
“Now, Therefore, I, Roy Cooper, Governor of the State of North Carolina, do hereby proclaim December 6, 2020, as ‘GENDER EXPANSIVE PARENT’S DAY’ in North Carolina, and commend its observance to all citizens.”
Rep. Vernetta Alston (D-Durham), who is in a same-sex marriage and has children three months and three years old, spearheaded the formal Proclamation process over the summer months and selected December 6, she said, because it didn’t conflict with other commemorations.
Alston told the Raleigh News and Observer the Proclamation shows support for the LGBTQ community. She said the Proclamation was also about “recognizing we’re a community that’s diverse and…to recognize this subset of parents that can get lost in conversations about parenting.”
Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League, said that Cooper’s Proclamation for a Gender Expansive Parent’s Day was unfortunate and tragic. “It’s the fallout from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision making same-sex marriage legal across America,” said Creech.
He explained he thought the Governor’s Proclamation teaches and promotes seriously flawed ideas.
“It teaches that same-sex marriage, same-sex romance, is just as moral and healthy as heterosexual behavior – something that doesn’t match the science or our culture’s experience, no matter what’s said to the contrary. It asserts that same-sex marriage and same-sex parenting is just as moral and beneficial as natural marriage and natural parenting, which is a dangerous lie,” said Creech. “It declares a mother or a father offers nothing uniquely beneficial to the care and development of a child. Same-sex parenting purposely denies a child either a mother or a father. Moms and Dads are not interchangeable. And finally, it alleges that marriage has nothing to do with procreation. It’s just coupling, and so, if you want to have children, it’s not imperative to get married. These false concepts are all bound up in that Proclamation, which is a form of cultural heresy that works to undermine the nation’s core strength – the character of the family. The home is our most important firewall against poverty, physical, mental, and emotional health issues, which, if compromised, only cost us billions of dollars in social welfare and law enforcement expenses. Only natural marriage and natural parenting can secure a healthy future for our children and civilization. By promoting this disinformation in a Proclamation, we are setting this nation up for an incredible amount of harm.”
Dr. James Dobson, Founder of Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and Family Talk, is quite direct about same-sex parenting in his book, Marriage Under Fire. In it, Dobson states:
“The implications for children in a world of decaying families are profound. Because homosexuals are rarely monogamous, often having as many as three hundred partners in a lifetime – some studies say it is typically more than one thousand – children in those polyamorous situations are caught in a perpetual coming and going. It is devastating to kids, who by their nature are enormously conservative creatures. They like things just the way they are, and they hate change…And have you considered what will happen when homosexuals with children become divorced? Instead of two moms and two dads, they will have to contend with four moms and four dads…that will rip kids apart emotionally.”
Given the facts about marriage and family life, Gender Expansive Parent’s Day is something to mourn rather than celebrate.
