Them Before Us Billboard in Lima, Ohio: Who's Behind It and Why It Backfired
Them Before Us wanted to shame queer families in Lima. It funded them instead, and it's part of a much bigger fight than one billboard.
A billboard went up on Elida Road in Lima, Ohio, a few weeks ago. It reads “No child has two dads. No child has two moms,” with “two dads” and “two moms” spelled out in rainbow letters. It’s paid for by an organization called Them Before Us.
It was supposed to shame queer families. Instead, it did the opposite. Within a week of going viral, a Dayton LGBTQ+ nonprofit had raised more than $15,000 to put up a billboard of its own, and Ohio’s queer community had a new rallying point.
Here’s what’s actually going on, who’s paying for it, and why a sign in a small Ohio city connects to a national fight over marriage equality that’s bigger than most people realize.
A Seattle Group Put “No Child Has Two Dads” on a Billboard in Lima, Ohio
Megan Tucker-Manly first saw the billboard while leaving a Walmart in Lima about three weeks before it went viral. She didn’t believe what she was reading. When she saw it again the following week, she pulled out her phone.
Her Facebook post, with a photo of the sign, took off. It’s been shared widely and has racked up more than 7,000 likes.
Tucker-Manly, who has stage IV cancer and spends much of her time in clinical trials, told The Buckeye Flame the billboard’s message goes further than most people realize. It doesn’t just target same-sex parents. Read literally, “no child has two dads, no child has two moms” also erases kids in foster care, kids with divorced parents, and kids being raised by a parent and a stepparent.
“I’m not sitting down, even though I should be the one to sit down because I have stage IV cancer and should be focused on other things,” she said. “Instead, this has just lit a fire in me.”
The sign is the work of Them Before Us, a Seattle-based advocacy group that describes itself as defending “children’s right to their mother and father.” Billboards with the same message have also gone up elsewhere in northwest Ohio, according to local reporting, though Lima’s has drawn the most attention.
Who’s Behind the Billboard: Katy Faust and a Nearly $1 Million Campaign
Them Before Us was founded in 2018 by Katy Faust, an activist based in West Seattle who has spent more than a decade arguing against marriage equality, in vitro fertilization, no-fault divorce, and surrogacy. The organization is classified as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that tracks extremism, and it has documented financial and coalition ties to two other SPLC-designated groups, Alliance Defending Freedom and the Family Research Council, according to reporting from Uncloseted Media.
Faust often frames her work around her own childhood. Her parents divorced when she was 10, and her mother later had a relationship with a woman, an experience Faust has written and spoken about publicly as the basis for her advocacy.
Them Before Us isn’t a small operation. Uncloseted Media’s investigation found the group brought in close to $900,000 in revenue in 2024, with a $300,000 gift from the Servant Foundation, a donor-advised fund financed by Hobby Lobby founder David Green. That reporting has not been independently disputed by Them Before Us.
Them Before Us Wants the Supreme Court to Overturn Obergefell v. Hodges
The Lima billboard isn’t a standalone stunt. It’s a local outpost of something much bigger.
In January 2026, Faust launched what she’s calling the Greater Than campaign: a coalition she says includes roughly 100 anti-LGBTQ+ organizations, though public reporting has confirmed at least 47, including Focus on the Family, Liberty Counsel, the Heritage Foundation, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Its stated goal is to persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.
The strategy is explicitly modeled on the anti-abortion movement’s playbook before Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization: grind away at public opinion state by state, then wait for the right case and the right court.
To be clear about where things actually stand: Obergefell is still the law of the land. The Supreme Court has declined to take up a challenge to it, most recently rejecting a petition from former Kentucky clerk Kim Davis in 2025 by a near-unanimous vote. The 2022 Respect for Marriage Act also requires the federal government and every state to recognize marriages that were legally performed elsewhere, even in a world where Obergefell someday falls. But Faust’s campaign isn’t hiding its ambition, and the billboard in Lima is one of its cheapest, most visible tools.
Ohio’s 2004 Marriage Ban Is Still on the Books, and a 2026 Fix Just Got Pushed to 2027
Here’s the part that makes this more than a symbolic fight for Ohioans specifically: Ohio’s state constitution still contains a 2004 amendment defining marriage as only between one man and one woman. Obergefell makes that language unenforceable today, but it hasn’t been erased.
A coalition called Ohio Equal Rights spent the first half of 2026 collecting signatures for two proposed constitutional amendments, one repealing the 2004 marriage ban and one adding broad nondiscrimination protections covering sexual orientation and gender identity. In June, the group announced it would not submit those signatures in time for the November 2026 ballot. Executive co-chair Lis Regula cited the cost of a statewide campaign and a preference for a less crowded ballot cycle, not a shortfall in signatures. The group says it will try again in 2027.
That means Ohio’s dormant marriage ban stays in the state constitution for at least another year, a detail that gives Them Before Us’s national ambitions a very specific local target if Obergefell is ever weakened.
Have a Gay Day Raised $15,000 to Answer the Billboard With Its Own
Have a Gay Day, a Dayton-based LGBTQ+ nonprofit, resource center, and popular meme page founded by Michael Knote, bought its own billboard space about a week after Tucker-Manly’s post went viral. When the group asked its followers to help fund the space, Knote said, donations came in fast, and the total passed $15,000.
Glen Strobel and Jeff Givan on Why the Sign Struck a Nerve in Lima
Lima Pride Alliance secretary Glen Strobel called the billboard “divisive” and “cruel,” and said the group fielded a wave of messages from residents asking how to respond. He helped promote the Have a Gay Day fundraiser to LPA’s followers.
“In some ways, it seems to pull people together in response to such a cruel message,” Strobel said.
Jeff Givan, a Lima Pride Alliance co-founder who is also running for Ohio House District 78, was more pointed. “It just really astounds me that people can put things up that stir up so much hate,” he told 13ABC. He questioned the timing, noting the billboard appeared as Ohio heads toward another election cycle, and argued it ignores the reality that LGBTQ+ families have stepped up to adopt children other families won’t, including kids considered harder to place.
Equality Ohio also weighed in with a statement: “These billboards don’t just attack LGBTQ+ families; they erase every Ohio kid whose home doesn’t fit a narrow, manufactured mold. They tell real children with real families that they don’t count.”
Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Delphine Luneau called the campaign “disgusting” and “desperate,” and told The Buckeye Flame that a majority of Ohioans support marriage equality. On that point, some added context is useful: PRRI’s most recent American Values Atlas data puts Ohio support for same-sex marriage at 53%, a majority, but a narrower one than “two-thirds” suggests. Support for LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections specifically runs higher, around 76% in a 2023 Ohio-focused study.
“These outside groups targeting the Buckeye State with fear and disinformation won’t ever win,” Luneau said.
What the Research Actually Shows About Kids With LGBTQ+ Parents
Them Before Us’s core claim, that children need one mother and one father to thrive, doesn’t hold up against the weight of the research. Major child welfare authorities, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, have found that a parent’s sexual orientation or gender identity has no bearing on their ability to raise a healthy, well-adjusted kid.
A 20-year evidence review published by RAND in May 2024 found no negative effects on marriage, divorce, or cohabitation among different-sex couples in states that legalized same-sex marriage, alongside improved health and economic outcomes for LGBT people. The same research found a small positive shift in marriage attitudes among high school seniors generally in states after legalization, a more modest finding than the framing some outlets have used to describe it.
Conservative commentators have pushed back on the backlash itself. Trending Politics co-owner Collin Rugg shared the billboard widely on social media, and the outlet Louder with Crowder ran a piece defending the sign as biological fact and dismissing objections to it. Those arguments treat “a mother and a father” as a neutral, scientific standard. The research on LGBTQ+ parenting says otherwise.
What Happens Next in Lima and at the Ohio Statehouse
Tucker-Manly, whose public Facebook presence had mostly centered on her cancer treatment (her most-shared post before this had been about her dog’s dental surgery), now plans to speak at an upcoming Lima City Council meeting about the billboard and what the city can do about hate speech at the local level.
Meanwhile, the fight Them Before Us is actually waging plays out on two tracks: a national push toward the Supreme Court that has, so far, gone nowhere, and a slower campaign to keep state-level bans like Ohio’s alive in case that changes. Ohio Equal Rights’ amendments won’t reach voters until at least 2027. Have a Gay Day’s fundraiser is still active. And Them Before Us has made clear this billboard is one of many.
Ohio’s marriage ban stays on the books for at least another year, and the group behind the Lima billboard isn’t going away. If you want to see what a community pushing back looks like, check out Have a Gay Day’s ongoing campaign, or look up your own city council’s next meeting. Subscribe to The Queer Agenda for more of this reporting as it develops.
Sources
Jodway, Ben. “’No child has two dads’ billboards spark outrage across rural Ohio.” The Advocate, originally published by The Buckeye Flame, July 24, 2026.
Jodway, Ben. “Anti-LGBTQ+ billboards pop up in rural Ohio. Communities are immediately pushing back.” The Buckeye Flame, July 23, 2026.
“Lima billboard message draws criticism from LGBTQ+ advocates.” 13ABC, July 22, 2026.
“Lima Billboard Fires Up LGBTQ+ Community.” Mercer County Outlook, July 23, 2026.
“Hate Group Launches Anti-LGBTQ Billboard Campaign.” Joe.My.God., July 2026.
“Anti-marriage equality campaign is installing billboards attacking queer families across the country.” LGBTQ Nation, July 23, 2026.
“How a Former Blogger Became the New Leader of America’s Anti-Gay Marriage Movement.” Uncloseted Media.
“Hobby Lobby Founder Linked to New Campaign Seeking to Overturn U.S. Marriage Equality Ruling.” EDGE Media Network.
Katy Faust. Wikipedia.
“Legalizing Marriage for Same-Sex Couples Benefited LGBT Individuals and Their Children: Twenty Years of Evidence.” RAND, May 13, 2024.
“Map: Legal Status of and Support for Same-sex Marriage in Each State.” PRRI.
“Proposed Ohio Equal Rights Amendment clears hurdle from Attorney General, heads to Ballot Board.” Ohio Capital Journal.
“Ohio Equal Rights will try to get two amendments on 2027 ballot.” Ohio Capital Journal, June 22, 2026.
“11 years after Obergefell, marriage equality remains under scrutiny.” Washington Blade, June 26, 2026.
Thanks for sharing about our organization! Folks can learn more about us at our Substack or thembeforeus.com. We don't know if millions of eyes of free press can be quantified as "backfiring" but our advantage is that we're living POST the LGBT-institutional-power structure that's been enjoyed the last few decades. Everyone has extreme rainbow fatigue (the mutilating minors, selling little kid tucking underwear, and men twerking for kindergardeners dressed as garish street walking women) AND they've never heard our arguments before.
We're thankful that the "outrage" has led to so many other people getting exposed to our children's rights argument. Part of the understandable frustration from some on the left is that they've been really used to shouting down or institutionally blocking all the ideas they don't like, and now they have to live in a world where people get to see them.