Someone apparently thought a billboard was the perfect place to start a debate about what makes a family. Ohio residents looked at that idea, grabbed their metaphorical marker, and basically wrote back: Thanks, but we’ll be handling the family definitions ourselves.
RELATED: The Foster Care Fight Just Got a Lot More Queer
Anti-LGBTQ+ billboards declaring, “No child has two dads. No child has two moms” have popped up across rural Ohio, courtesy of Seattle-based organization Them Before Us. But instead of quietly letting the message hang in the background like an outdated sign nobody bothered to remove, residents and LGBTQ+ advocates turned the moment into a community-wide reminder that families have always come in more than one design.
RELATED: Kim Davis Accused of Moving Assets to Avoid Paying Gay Couple
The billboards quickly gained attention after Northwest Ohio resident Megan Tucker-Manly shared a photo of one on Facebook on July 17. And for her, the problem wasn’t just that the message targeted same-sex parents — it was that it erased the reality of countless children growing up in families that do not fit someone else’s carefully approved checklist.
That includes foster families, blended families, divorced households and families built through love rather than a traditional blueprint. Tucker-Manly, who is living with stage IV cancer, said she still felt the need to speak out.
“I’m not sitting down, even though I should be the one to sit down because I have stage IV cancer and should be focused on other things,” she told The Buckeye Flame in a July 23 interview. “Instead, this has just lit a fire [in me].”
And honestly? If a billboard was expecting everyone to just scroll past, it picked the wrong person to underestimate.
Ohio turned a billboard battle into a love campaign
The response came quickly — and with a much warmer message. LGBTQ+ nonprofit Have a Gay Day purchased its own billboard space to counter the anti-LGBTQ+ message with one that actually reflects the families people see every day. The organization launched a fundraiser to keep the supportive billboards up, and supporters showed up in a big way.
According to the group’s July 23 Facebook announcement, the fundraiser raised more than $18,000.
The nonprofit later announced a peaceful rally in Lima, encouraging attendees to bring “positive signs of love and support for ALL families.” Their proposed billboard design delivered a simple but powerful response:
“Many children have two dads. Many children have two moms.”
Same billboard format. Completely different energy.
One says, “We want to decide which families count.”
The other says, “Maybe stop pretending families need your permission.”
The billboard missed one tiny detail: families are already here
Lima Pride Alliance and Equality Ohio also pushed back against Them Before Us’ campaign, arguing that the message does not only target LGBTQ+ families — it dismisses anyone whose home life does not match a narrow definition.
Equality Ohio said the billboards “don’t just attack LGBTQ+ families, they erase every Ohio kid whose home doesn’t fit a narrow, manufactured mold.”
The Human Rights Campaign also criticized the campaign, with a spokesperson describing the billboards as “disgusting” and “desperate” in a statement to The Buckeye Flame. The organization pointed to polling showing that a majority of Ohioans support marriage equality.
Because here’s the thing about families: they have never been a one-size-fits-all product. There are families with two moms, two dads, single parents, grandparents raising children, stepfamilies and every kind of loving arrangement in between. The family photo album has always been more interesting than the people trying to control the frame.
This fight is bigger than one billboard
Them Before Us has long opposed marriage equality, IVF and no-fault divorce, while advocating for what it considers the ideal family structure. The organization is also among the groups behind the “Greater Than” campaign, which launched earlier this year with the goal of encouraging the US Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that made same-sex marriage legal nationwide.
But in Ohio, the billboard fight has become less about a piece of vinyl on the side of a road and more about who gets to tell people their families are real. The answer from residents has been pretty loud: not the people buying billboard space.
Because a family is not created by a slogan. It is created by the people who show up, care, protect each other and make a house feel like home.
And apparently, Ohio had plenty to say back — with better signs, better energy and a whole lot more heart.