EU ‘rainbow families’ to replace mum and dad?

News

The European Commission has launched its new LGBTIQ+ Equality Strategy 2026-2030. It promotes legal gender self declaration and urges Member States to make gender recognition “free from age restrictions”. It also promises to “publish a study… [to] take appropriate action to combat conversion practices”.  “Rainbow families” are a key concern.

Britain may be outside the EU, but our policies track the same path:

• New statutory RSHE guidance dropped the age rules for “sensitive” topics. It instructs schools not to teach as fact that “all people have a gender identity”, while leaving wide scope for gender identity content at earlier ages if a school judges it appropriate.
• An equalities minister has, in the last week, stated that the Government remains committed to “a full trans inclusive ban on conversion practices”, with a draft Bill promised for pre legislative scrutiny. A ‘conversion practices’ offence would impact pastoral care and parental guidance.
• Same sex female couples can already have both names on a UK child’s birth certificate; those with a Gender Recognition Certificate have long been able to obtain a new birth certificate in their affirmed sex. We’ve long since obscured biological lineage and normalised non biological parent recording in law.
• Official figures show that in April to June 2025, 20% of adoption orders went to same sex couples and that number is set to rise.

For generations, most UK children grew up with their married mum and dad. That norm is being displaced in law and practice. Equality frameworks now deter public bodies from affirming man woman marriage as the social gold standard.

Some ways to start putting things right:

• Marriage settlement: Review the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 with the goal of restoring the legal pre-eminence of man-woman marriage in family policy, tax and education.
• RSHE: Reinstate firm minimum age thresholds for “sensitive” content, reinstate the importance of teaching the benefits of man-woman marriage, and enshrine in law the parental right to decide what their children are taught.
• Gender Recognition Act 2004: Repeal this law allowing replacement birth certificates that create a legal fiction and undermine the very basis of man-woman marriage.
• Human Fertilisation and Embryology law: Restore an explicit welfare test that recognises a child’s need for both a mother and a father. Parliament replaced the old “need for a father” wording with “supportive parenting” in 2008.

Practical action you can take:

• Share this update with friends and family, encouraging them to also use our guides to object to RSHE that pushes ideology beyond the law.
• Invite C4M to your church or organisation to deliver marriage refresher sessions, family conferences, teen events and more, as a means of promoting a culture of thriving marriage in our time.