Since making history as the first Utah governor to recognize LGBTQ+ Pride Month, Spencer Cox has over the last few Junes backed away from declaring his support for that community, until he issued no declaration at all last year.

Now, in his sixth year leading the state, Cox quietly signed a declaration dubbing June “Fidelity Month” and signaling a continued shift to the right for the leader who once described himself as “an ally to the LGBTQ community.”

“Whereas,” the document Cox signed reads, “John Adams, a founding father of the United States, said, ‘Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.’”

It continues, “The survival of the United States depends on the shared bonds of faith, family and patriotism; and Whereas, it is fitting to observe one month each year to rededicate the United States to its core values.”

Cox did not announce the declaration with a news release, nor did he post it on social media as he has done at the beginning of June in past years.

Instead, the undated PDF file is tucked into a list of declarations on the governor’s website.

Cox, a Republican, joined Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in declaring June “Fidelity Month.” Other GOP-led states — including Indiana and Tennessee — recognized June as “Nuclear Family Month,” while Alabama is calling it “Strong Families Month.”

The Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, has previously ranked Huckabee Sanders the country’s most conservative governor.

Deseret News reported “Fidelity Month” is “a movement promoted by conservative scholar Robert George” — a contributing writer at the Utah news outlet.

The New York Times Magazine in 2009 called George “the reigning brain of the Christian right,“ and he previously chaired the National Organization for Marriage as it fought to stop the legalization of same-sex marriage.

LGBTQ+ advocacy group Project Rainbow Utah criticized Cox’s declaration, writing in a statement, “It’s disappointing that a governor who makes ‘disagree better’ his calling card is so openly dismissive of perspectives other than his own.”

“Recasting June as Fidelity Month, instead of Pride Month,” the organization added, “is a slap in the face for LGBTQ+ Utahns. It would have been easy to start a campaign or recognize another month to pursue these goals, instead of taking Pride Month away from our community and replacing it with an insult that implies LGBTQ+ people don’t have families of their own, faith that they nourish, or a sense of patriotism that inspires them to make their community and country better.”

The state’s Democratic lawmakers made a less direct jab at the governor in a news release to “declare June Pride Month, as it has been for many years.”

“Pride is part of Utah’s history, and celebrating it today is just as important as ever,” a statement from House and Senate Democrats read. “At a time when so many communities, including the LGBTQ+ community, are being targeted and erased, Utah needs leaders who bring people together, not leaders who deliberately look for new ways to divide us.”

This is also the fifth consecutive year in which Utah has passed laws restricting its transgender residents’ rights.

Three years after lawmakers voted to place a “moratorium” on gender-affirming care for transgender children and teenagers, they voted to make the restrictions permanent.

Beginning Jan. 28, 2027, Utah doctors must stop providing gender-affirming care to minor patients who did not start hormone replacement therapy before May 6 of this year, and cannot continue the care for anyone under 16 years old. Surgically changing a transgender minor’s sex characteristics was already prohibited.

Cox signed that bill in March, nearly a year after a Legislature-commissioned medical evidence review concluded gender-affirming care for minors with gender dysphoria is largely found to result in positive outcomes and reduce the likelihood of suicide.

Neither officials from the Utah Department of Health and Human Services, nor the University of Utah researchers who compiled the review, were ever invited to speak at the Capitol about the evidence review. Instead, lawmakers largely relied on the advice of conservative, anti-transgender activists in passing the additional restrictions.

The annual Utah Pride Festival takes place this weekend, with the Pride Parade set for Sunday in downtown Salt Lake City.