Idaho House Republicans call for traditional family values month celebration

The Idaho House of Representatives voted along party lines Thursday to pass a nonbinding resolution that supports the designation of a new traditional family values month in Idaho.

Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d’Alene, sponsored House Concurrent Resolution 35, which would designate the period from Mother’s Day through Father’s Day in Idaho as traditional family values month. Each week of the month would feature celebrations of different units of what Alfieri described as a traditional family, including sons, brothers, uncles, sisters, daughters, aunts, “the natural female mother and male father.”

In Idaho, resolutions do not carry the force of law. Under the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Rule 2, resolutions “denote the adoption of a motion, the subject matter of which would not properly constitute a statute,” such as a vote of thanks or an alteration of a rule. 

Although the resolution does not carry the force and effect of law, legislators engaged in a passionate debate over the proposal Thursday nevertheless. 

Idaho House Democrats opposed resolution

Some Democrats who opposed the resolution said language included House Concurrent Resolution 35 was offensive to nontraditional families. Democrats also questioned some of the statistics cited in the resolution, including a passage claiming “compared to peers in two biological parent married families, children who lived with a single parent with no cohabiting partner were five times more likely to be sexually abused, children who lived in a stepfamily with a married biological and non-biological parent were eight to nine times more likely to be sexually abused, and children who lived with a single parent with a partner in the home were twenty times more likely to be sexually abused.”

Several legislators said they are single parents or a child of a single parent and would have appreciated a resolution honoring all strong families. Some opponents said they didn’t agree with elevating one type of family over another. 

“I am a single mom, I was also raised by a single mom, who was raised by a single mom,” said Jennifer Beazer, a substitute legislator who is serving this week for Rep. Sue Chew, D-Boise, in her floor debate. Beazer, who was appointed Monday, said it was her first time debating a bill. 

“While I appreciate wanting to show support for traditional families, there are a lot of us who are not traditional families and not by choice,” Beazer said. “I didn’t get married to get divorced. I didn’t take my children from a situation that was very dangerous for them physically and mentally because it was easy. I had to do that because of the behavior of my ex-husband, who was raised in a very traditional, very religious loving family, raised in Nampa, Idaho. So I have to stand and say while I appreciate the sentiment, I can’t support it for those reasons.”

But while all Democrats opposed the bill, all Republicans supported it. 

Rep. Elaine Price, R-Coeur d’Alene, argued in favor of designating a traditional family values month.

“We constantly hear that people want to be their authentic selves, and I feel like the box that I fit in, I don’t get to be my authentic self because I am told that I am being possibly racist or being phobic of something,” Price said in her floor debate Thursday. “And this traditional family month would allow me to be my authentic self, identify in this box. So I feel that we should be able to have this month as well as everybody else who gets their month.”

House Concurrent Resolution 35 heads next to the Idaho Senate for consideration.

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