First, a pro-family policy agenda should recognize the natural family as a pre-political reality grounded in humans’ biological and social nature. It exists in some form in every culture. It is the cell of society. [...]

Second, the country should avoid policies, however well-meaning, that undermine marriage and the formation of families, or reward or encourage needless delay in marriage and out-of-wedlock births. The country’s regulations, welfare system, and tax code, for instance, should not penalize marriage and encourage single parenthood. Education should not coax young Americans to delay marriage while pursuing needless credentials. Housing policy should not put the price of owning a home out of the reach of the median American family. Tech policy should not make it harder for families to balance their duties at home and at work. Environmental policy should not treat human beings as mere costs.

Third, policies should favor natural marriage over same-sex and polyamorous relationships, cohabitation, or intentional single parenthood. Fathers and mothers are not generic and interchangeable “parents.” It is not discrimination to acknowledge the differences between them. Each brings unique and complementary assets to the vocation of parenthood. Every child, biologically, has both a mother and a father and has a legitimate claim on each of them. This is the basis for monogamy. Without mating, there is little public reason for marriage to be limited to two people. A policy should never encourage efforts to intentionally separate a child from his or her mother or father, except in extreme cases involving immediate threats to a child’s life and safety.

Fourth, and related, the state and federal governments should recognize the natural differences between men and women. They should also preserve this distinction between the sexes in law against attempts to replace it with tendentious and subjective concepts, such as “gender identity.”