Fidelity Racket; or, On Idolatry Month

Fidelity Month?

The conservative governors of Arkansas and Utah recently declared June “Fidelity Month.” The architect of Fidelity Month is conservative Robert George.

According to George, “Fidelity Month is dedicated to the importance of fidelity to God, spouses and families, and our country and communities.” His website even features a statement by Barack Obama: “Of all the rocks upon which we build our lives, we are reminded today that family is the most important.”

If it were not for the fact that June is Pride Month, a genuine celebration of liberal democracy and the fruits of freedom, I imagine I would just shrug my shoulders at George’s passion for a few basic elements of citizenship: freedom of religion, freedom of association, and a sense of profound gratitude for our hard-won freedoms.

Sanders’s commitment to fidelity is tawdry compared to George’s. Notice the second WHEREAS in her declaration: “The Declaration of Independence appeals to ‘the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God’ when establishing the United States as a free nation with a unique identity.”

“The Laws of Nature” is heterosexual code referring to those of us who supposedly live contrary to nature. In one way, that is an absurd claim. Same-sex desire is a fact of nature. In other words, it exists. On the other hand, I can only agree with Saint Paul. Same-sex desire is, like the redeeming will of God, against nature, that is, against tradition or custom (Romans 1:26; 11:24).

Fidelity Month is a racket.

Tawdry or classy, Fidelity Month is a racket. It feels innocent, but it is intended to create a zone of exclusion for people who do not live their lives according to the ideologies of George or Sanders.

Once cast out, however, the temptation is to look back, to be lured in by the allure of fidelity alone. Doing so, we damn ourselves. Or so I think.

You may have noticed the allusion to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the previous paragraph (Genesis 19; Luke 17:28–32). The point I am making is this: Queers have been given a pathway out of a damned politics that idolizes domination. Why then settle for the only reward we will ever receive for turning back, namely, a life stuck on the margins of violence?

Fidelity alone is just another name for idolatry.

Consider also that fidelity alone is just another name for idolatry. The story of Nicodemus makes just this point (John 3).

Nicodemus comes to Jesus under cover of darkness. He doesn’t want to appear unfaithful to long-established religious orthodoxy by associating with a heterodox Jew like Jesus.

Nonetheless, Nicodemus is a curious fellow, and he discerns something of God’s unique presence in Jesus. It is Nicodemus’s curiosity that puts him face to face with infidelity.

Curious, is it not, how one tradition can move people in very different directions? The tradition from which Nicodemus learns to discern the presence of God in Jesus is the same tradition from which his peers learn to condemn Jesus as a heretic.

Nicodemus’s colleagues interpret Jesus’s healing of a blind man as the work of a mere “sinner” (John 9). They take Jesus’s raising of Lazarus from the dead as an opportunity to vote to turn Jesus over to Rome for execution—and they even plot to kill the recently resurrected Lazarus himself (John 11; 12:10).

Nicodemus, on the other hand, is not what Andrew Sullivan calls a “prohibitionist.” He doesn’t end up thinking that Jesus’s lifestyle is contrary to the law of nature, at least not in the way Sanders defines “Law of Nature.” He’s a “compassionate conservative.” He defends Jesus’s right to a fair trial and shows up at his funeral (John 7; 19).

Whatever his virtues, Nicodemus ends up agreeing with his peers. His commitment to fidelity blocks him from ultimately accepting the presence of God in the queer person of Jesus.

Fidelity is dangerous without its other, infidelity (and vice versa).

Fidelity Alone Isn’t Worth It.

So, as much as Fidelity Month is intended to hurt or otherwise irritate those of us who celebrate in June the freedom to live our lives without religious or government interference and with a hard-won sense of positive self-regard (i.e., pride), it is a racket.

Fidelity alone is not worth what it costs us: surprise and transformation—or, in a word, salvation.