FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) – After Fresno County declared June as “Traditional Nuclear Family Month,” local business owners gathered to celebrate LGBTQ families excluded from the resolution.
“When you see two mothers smiling with their baby, how can you say ‘This isn’t family’? How can you say that this isn’t God’s purpose,” said Kiana Hernandez, a Tower District business owner and photographer.
On Tuesday, in collaboration with multiple local businesses, including Maarte, Hernandez offered free photo shoots to families not recognized in Fresno County’s “Traditional Nuclear Family Month.” The resolution, passed on June 12, celebrates the traditional family structure of one husband, one wife, and biological, adopted, or foster children.
“When I feel like the queer community has been targeted, has been purposefully excluded, how ‘not normal’ or ‘nontraditional’ families have been targeted here in Fresno by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors— I feel it is my duty to lead with love, and to really show what real families look like here in Fresno,” Hernandez expressed.
The resolution, presented by Supervisor Garry Bredefeld, initially contained a section that read in part, “children are now under attack from anti-family groups that make every effort to indoctrinate children into the LGBTQ.” That section was ultimately removed in the final resolution.
“We’re just trying to harness our anger and frustration at the Fresno County Board of Supervisors, and transform that into love and really harness it into our own community because queerness is going to exist whether this resolution exists or not. So it is up to us to make sure that we’re cultivating our own community,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez hopes the photos, which will be enlarged and displayed at Fresno’s next ArtHop, will open the hearts of communities who are not exposed to, or familiar with, families outside of the nuclear dynamic.
“A lot of this isolation and division comes from fear, and I think there is a lot of fear-mongering going on politically in this country, and specifically in Fresno,” Hernandez explained. “By doing this we are showing them that these are loving families, these are not ‘nontraditional families.'”
