PIERRE, South Dakota (LifeSiteNews) — A Democrat lawmaker in South Dakota is under fire for declaring it “dangerous” and “un-American” to believe that children should have both a mother and a father.
On Monday, State Rep. Erin Healy tweeted, “Extremist group Family Heritage Alliance said this morning that the safest place for kids are in families that have a married mom and dad. What a dangerous and un-American belief,” apparently in reaction to comments against an unsuccessful bill to remove sex-specific language from South Dakota’s legal definition of marriage.
https://twitter.com/RepErinHealy/status/1625219121687437312
https://twitter.com/RepErinHealy/status/1625167297844240384
Family Heritage Alliance, a group dedicated to pro-life, pro-faith, and pro-family policies in the Mount Rushmore State, responded in a statement to Fox News that Healy “has completely disregarded what we know to be true about children and families. Growing up in the home of a married biological mother and father is the single largest predictor of success later in life. It’s highly ironic that she describes a well-known fact about child safety as dangerous and un-American.”
A substantial amount of social science literature supports the conviction that children are best served by homes with both a mother and a father, as each sex tends to bring unique strengths and emphases to parenting, which complement one another; and gives children a positive role model of their own sex as well as helping them understand and relate to the opposite sex. By contrast, a homosexual male couple would by definition lack a mother, and a lesbian couple would be unable to provide a father.
https://twitter.com/tperkins/status/1625941808394997766
https://twitter.com/tperkins/status/1625941813189087247
https://twitter.com/BradWilcoxIFS/status/1625315277960359938
Healy’s tweet received substantial pushback from conservatives on social media:
https://twitter.com/CWforA/status/1625894292496560132
https://twitter.com/fredgiblet/status/1625522693100703747
https://twitter.com/MalcolmRenoldz/status/1625850690575663104
Earlier this month, Healy also proposed legislation to exempt menstrual products for “people who menstruate” from the state sales tax, drawing similar scrutiny for her rhetorical ode to gender fluidity:
https://twitter.com/SpeakinFromTN/status/1625326443050725379
This week, South Dakota banned the practice of chemically or surgically “transitioning” minors to a facsimile of the opposite sex. Last year, the state prohibited gender-confused biological males from participating in female-specific school athletic programs.