To push back on Pride month, Fresno County adopted 'Traditional' family month

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Set us as preferred While the LGBTQ+ community and allies celebrated June as Pride month across much of the country, one community in Central California was living in a different reality.Following a 3-2 vote on June 16 by its Board of Supervisors, Fresno County recognized June as “Traditional Nuclear Family Month,” declaring that the nuclear family unit is “God’s perfect design” that aligns with Fresno’s “traditional” values.But for people like Supervisor Luis Chavez, who was elected to the board in November 2024 and said he is due to take over as chair next year, last month’s vote was an anomaly that should not be repeated, he said.For Chavez, he said, the resolution was personal.He and his family have opened up their home to foster children for the last seven years.“We’ve taken in children that were not welcomed in homes because they did identify as either lesbian, gay and we actually had a nonbinary child that stayed with us, too, in our home, and it bothered me because this language specifically excluded the amazing foster parents that we have that just happened to be LGBTQ,” he said.Chavez said he was the only Fresno County supervisor to attend this year’s Fresno Pride Parade, a celebration that brings 20,000 people to the city’s Tower District.

For someone who had attended the festivity barely a week prior, the resolution proposed by board chair Garry Bredefeld was divisive, not unifying.“Nobody is opposed to the quote unquote traditional family, I think a lot of folks come from that,” Chavez said.“The language that was used was just exclusionary and made it a point to marginalize and feel that we weren’t going to recognize LGBTQ folks in our community.”Bredefeld introduced the resolution after the governors of Tennessee and Indiana signed proclamations declaring June “Nuclear Fam...