Tennessee Governor Signs Resolution Declaring June ‘Nuclear Family Month’

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed a resolution that designates June, considered “Pride Month” by some, as “Nuclear Family Month,” noting that the nuclear family “is God’s design for familial structure.”

The resolution states that “the nuclear family, consisting of one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children,” has “been the bedrock of society” since God created the world.

The nuclear family is also described as having been “the basic building block of Tennessee’s society throughout her formative years,” and as having “built the United States of America.”

The resolutions begins:

WHEREAS, the nuclear family, consisting of one husband, one wife, and any biological, adopted, or fostered children, is God’s design for familial structure and has been the bedrock of society since the creation of the world; and

WHEREAS, the nuclear family was the basic building block of Tennessee’s society throughout her formative years;

It continues to affirm that “the nuclear family built the United States of America and created prosperity within our nation[.]”

The resolution also points out that “fatherless families are four times more likely to live in poverty than married-couple families,” and that children who grow up in homes without fathers “are ten times more likely to abuse chemical substances” and have mental health and behavioral problems.”

It adds:

Fatherless youths are twenty times more likely to be incarcerated; eighty-five percent of youths in prison come from fatherless homes; and in a 2016 study by Peter Langman on the psychology behind fifty-six school shooters, eighty-two percent of the shooters were raised in an unstable family environment or without both biological parents together.

While the resolution — which says the nuclear family “is under attack,” was passed in “both chambers of the … Republican-controlled state legislature,” it is “not binding,” the New York Post reported.

A spokesperson for GLAAD, a “non-profit organization focused on LGBTQ advocacy” issued a statement to the Advocate, an LGBTQ+ news source, saying, “Resolutions like this do more to reveal the cluelessness of elected officials whose own families and those of their constituents have various family dynamics and structures. The strongest families are grounded by love.”