{"id":2498,"date":"2011-02-16T15:40:29","date_gmt":"2011-02-16T15:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f.php"},"modified":"2011-02-16T15:40:29","modified_gmt":"2011-02-16T15:40:29","slug":"bill-would-codify-mother-and-f","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f","title":{"rendered":"Bill Would Codify &#8216;Mother&#8217; and &#8216;Father&#8217; on Documents"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) A proposed House bill will require the use of &#8220;mother&#8221; and &#8220;father&#8221; by all federal agencies and contractors when describing parents, pushing back on a move by the State Department to use &#8220;parent&#8221; instead.<br \/>\nThe Parental Title Protection Act of 2011, sponsored by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., would mandate the use of these words instead of the terms &#8220;Parent 1&#8221; and &#8220;Parent 2.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;These subtle, but nonetheless significant, changes undermine the traditional American family relationships that have served as the bedrock of our nation since its inception,&#8221; Forbes said in a statement.<br \/>\nForbes introduced the bill just weeks after the State Department tried to remove the terms &#8220;mother&#8221; and &#8220;father&#8221; from records of oversea births. The use of &#8220;Parent 1&#8221; and &#8220;Parent 2&#8221; was intended to &#8220;provide a gender-neutral description of a child&#8217;s parents and in recognition of different types of families,&#8221; the department said at the time.<br \/>\nAfter criticism from religious and conservative groups, led in part by the Family Research Council, the Department of State backpedaled slightly and agreed to use the terms &#8220;Mother or Parent 1&#8221; and &#8220;Father or Parent 2.&#8221;<br \/>\nForbes, a long-time Sunday school teacher and member at Great Bridge Baptist Church in Chesapeake, Va., has been a reliable conservative vote on social issues.<br \/>\nThe bill has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.<br \/>\n<strong>&#8211; RICHARD YEAKLEY<\/strong>, <em>Religion News Service<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (RNS) A proposed House bill will require the use of &#8220;mother&#8221; and &#8220;father&#8221; by all federal agencies and contractors when describing parents, pushing back on a move by the State Department to use &#8220;parent&#8221; instead. The Parental Title Protection Act of 2011, sponsored by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., would mandate the use of these&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":264,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-rns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bill Would Codify &#039;Mother&#039; and &#039;Father&#039; on Documents<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bill Would Codify &#039;Mother&#039; and &#039;Father&#039; on Documents\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON (RNS) A proposed House bill will require the use of &#8220;mother&#8221; and &#8220;father&#8221; by all federal agencies and contractors when describing parents, pushing back on a move by the State Department to use &#8220;parent&#8221; instead. The Parental Title Protection Act of 2011, sponsored by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., would mandate the use of these&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-02-16T15:40:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Bill Would Codify 'Mother' and 'Father' on Documents","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Bill Would Codify 'Mother' and 'Father' on Documents","og_description":"WASHINGTON (RNS) A proposed House bill will require the use of &#8220;mother&#8221; and &#8220;father&#8221; by all federal agencies and contractors when describing parents, pushing back on a move by the State Department to use &#8220;parent&#8221; instead. The Parental Title Protection Act of 2011, sponsored by Rep. Randy Forbes, R-Va., would mandate the use of these&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-02-16T15:40:29+00:00","author":"editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f","name":"Bill Would Codify 'Mother' and 'Father' on Documents","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-02-16T15:40:29+00:00","dateModified":"2011-02-16T15:40:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/02\/bill-would-codify-mother-and-f#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Bill Would Codify &#8216;Mother&#8217; and &#8216;Father&#8217; on Documents"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58d12601cbe230a61e6f2ea91d341249","name":"editor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dfc\/dfcc0838a84dd70003db24678b13c234x96.jpg","caption":"editor"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/editor"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/264"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2498\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}