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> Media PoolConservative group pushes June as 'Faith and Family' Month, but says it's not because of Pride
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One group is pushing for local communities to recognize June as "Faith and Family" month and several Tampa Bay area cities are jumping on board — claiming it’s not to take some of the spotlight from Pride, a month-long celebration of LGBTQ+ people.
It started after a conversation last year with Clearwater Mayor Bruce Rector and Daniel and Kathy Bernard, co-founders of Somebody Cares Tampa Bay, a network of evangelical Christians that organizes service projects like Carefest, which annually helps seniors make repairs to their homes.
“We are so excited in Clearwater to be celebrating for the first time Faith and Family Month,” Rector says in a video posted on the Faith and Family Month website. “An entire month with family-friendly activities and talking about how faith can help families be stronger.”
The website also says that “we affirm Christian marriage, defined by one man and one woman united by God in holy matrimony.” For the Bernards, faith means believing family can only be with a man and woman as parents.
“We're just promoting those values of what we understand biblical family is,” Daniel said. “We have our right to do just that.”
They say they picked June partly because it’s the month for Father's Day and National Children's Day, not to take attention from Pride.
“No one owns the month of June, right?” he added.
Andy Oliver, the pastor of LGBTQ-friendly Allendale United Methodist Church, thinks Faith and Family Month is likely part of a larger effort to undo decades of advancement for the LGBTQ+ community.
“It just appears to me there's been a lot across our country of trying to reframe the month of June as anything but Pride,” Oliver said. “Conservatives think that they're pulling us backward, but really they're creating the tension necessary as they pull back a slingshot, and eventually that tension is going to give way and push us forward into a new future.”
Still, Faith and Family Month is spreading across Florida, to places including Lakeland, with concerts and conferences promoting straight-sex marriage.
“We're just going to take it this year and see how we can grow it for next year,” Kathy Bernard said.
There's also a national push to reorient June to honor Christian values, including Utah Senator Mike Lee who just introduced a resolution designating June as "Fidelity Month,” and says the country's "moral fabric is fraying."
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