Without directly saying the idea was to replace Pride, the governors of Indiana and Tennessee rebranded June as Nuclear Family Month to celebrate units made up of “one husband, one wife and any biological, adopted or fostered children.”
In Alabama, it's Strong Families Month, intended to coincide with Father's Day. Gov. Kay Ivey's proclamation says fathers are “the head of the household” and “homes led by a father and mother provide children with the structure and discipline necessary to succeed throughout life.”
The governors of Utah and Arkansas deemed it Fidelity Month, which emphasizes fidelity to faith, country and family — without comment on how those families might be comprised.
Last week, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' X account posted a link to an article about her proclamation that declared, “Another Red State is Counter-Programming Pride Month.”
Republican lawmakers in at least four other GOP-controlled states have introduced legislation this year calling for June to be Fidelity Month.
An organization pushing that concept was founded by Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor of jurisprudence who has long been a leader on conservative thought.
He told the National Catholic Register about the idea in 2023, saying “nobody gets a monopoly on a particular day or a particular month.”
Every Democrat president since Bill Clinton in 1999 has signed a Pride proclamation each year — and no Republican president has.
Last year, President Donald Trump’s Education Department began declaring June to be Title IX Month – and using it to open investigations into schools that allow transgender students to use the bathrooms or locker rooms that align with their gender identities.
Last year, U.S. Rep. Mary Miller, an Illinois Republican, introduced a resolution to make June Family Month — and to unrecognize Pride Month, saying “Americans are inundated with perverse Pride Month displays and events throughout the month of June that denigrate the nuclear family.” It never got a vote.
Some backers view the state measures as an opportunity for a cultural reset.
Kevin Roberts, president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, said in an interview that it's good to have the conservative recognitions because Pride celebrations “were going so far as to make it difficult to celebrate traditional marriage."
The resolution approved by Tennessee’s Legislature and governor does not mention Pride Month specifically, while saying the “nuclear family is under attack in our beloved State and nation.”
But Lakie Derrick, a conservative activist who authored the measure with a friend, said she did indeed target it to June to counter Pride Month, which she said “goes against” American values.
“We’re just reclaiming the culture, and there’s no better month to do that than in a month where the culture says we’re gonna celebrate something so opposite to what we know to be right,” Derrick said.
In Wenatchee, Washington, a school’s Turning Point USA chapter was able to get Family Month banners posted on light poles that in the past had displayed rainbow flags during June.
