The St. Petersburg City Council is slated to recognize June as “Inclusive Family and Faith Month” Thursday right after it celebrates Pride month and honors the 49 people killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting 10 years ago.
St. Petersburg is the latest city to receive a request for a proclamation from Christian groups that promote marriage as being between one man and one woman. It was brought forward by council member Corey Givens.
A similar proclamation was recently approved by the Pinellas County Commission. The Clearwater City Council approved the recognition last year.
However, Mayor Ken Welch’s administration has attempted to mitigate the message by inserting the word “Inclusive” before the proclamation’s title. “Inclusive Family and Faith Month” now seeks to recognize families in all forms, including same-sex couples.
Though Faith and Family Month’s official organizers are not expected to come to City Hall on Thursday, Givens’ invited guests include a group called Florida Faith Foundations. According to its website, the group is “against a radical Leftist Woke insurgency.” It seeks to “expose LGBTQ+ radical activism.”
Before it was rewritten, the proclamation seemed out of character for St. Petersburg, which raised the St. Pete Pride flag above City Hall last week for potentially the last time. It has historically hosted the largest Pride festival in Florida and threw a block party to celebrate ahead of a new Florida law that goes into effect in January that bars cities and counties from funding or promoting diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Givens was the only council member who was not at the flag raising, though he attended a council meeting later that day. He said he had a personal conflict but attended the St. Pete Pride Family Day event.
A few organizations approached him wanting the city to recognize the month of June as Faith and Family Month, Givens said. He said he brought the proclamation forward as Gov. Ron DeSantis declared June Faith and Family month.
Givens said Welch did not approve the language of the original proclamation submitted. Givens said he was supportive of the changes.
“This had nothing to do with Pride,” Givens said. “This is just a month where we’re celebrating faith and family and promoting organizations to support family and having a Father’s Day event.”
Givens said he supported the proclamation because he is the son of a single teen mom and he is a proponent of ending “the epidemic of fatherlessness.” He serves on the board of Next STEPP, a St. Petersburg pregnancy center that has been accused by abortion-rights advocates of using unethical anti-abortion tactics.
“I recognize too that families today look different,” Givens said. “There’s homosexual couples who are parents and I respect that. I would not diminish their ability to be good parents in any way. What I do know is that kids in general stand to benefit in many ways from having a father figure in their life.”
Asked about Florida Faith Foundations and the statements on the group’s website, Givens said he doesn’t discriminate when people bring proclamations to him.
“As long as it’s legal and appropriate, this was one I was willing to bring forward,” he said. “I commend the mayor for signing it.”
That doesn’t pass the smell test for council vice chairperson Richie Floyd, who is sponsoring the Pulse Remembrance Day Proclamation, which remembers the deadliest act of anti-LGBTQ+ violence in modern history.
“There’s a concerted effort to try to push back against LGBTQ+ rights,” he said. “I’m glad the proclamation is reflecting that our city’s not going to be a part of that pushback. Obviously I can’t speak to his intent, but the intent of these organizations are abundantly clear. It’s laid out on their website.
“It’s naive at best, really,” Floyd said.
