AP (“The Trump camp and the White House clash over Biden’s recognition of ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’“):
President Joe Biden is facing criticism from Donald Trump’s campaign and religious conservatives for proclaiming March 31 — which corresponds with Easter Sunday this year — as “Transgender Day of Visibility.”
The Democratic president issued the proclamation on Friday, calling on “all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our Nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity.”
But in 2024, the March 31 designation overlaps with Easter, one of Christianity’s holiest celebrations. Trump’s campaign accused Biden, a Roman Catholic, of being insensitive to religion, and fellow Republicans piled on.
“We call on Joe Biden’s failing campaign and White House to issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only — the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s press secretary. She assailed what she called the Biden administration’s “years-long assault on the Christian faith.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said on social media that the “Biden White House has betrayed the central tenet of Easter” and called the decision “outrageous and abhorrent.”
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said the Republicans criticizing Biden “are seeking to divide and weaken our country with cruel, hateful and dishonest rhetoric.”
“As a Christian who celebrates Easter with family, President Biden stands for bringing people together and upholding the dignity and freedoms of every American,” Bates said. “President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit.”
The advocacy group GLAAD said in a statement that people can both celebrate Easter and show their support for the trans community.
“The date of Easter moves each year, while Trans Day of Visibility is always recognized on March 31, but this year right-wing politicians and talking heads are using the coincidental timing to overshadow the hope and joy that Easter represents,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, GLAAD president and CEO.
Biden first issued a proclamation on transgender visibility in 2021. Proclamations are generally statements about public policy by the president. But this year’s overlap with Easter and the heated tensions from the presidential campaign made the latest transgender proclamation a way for many Republicans to question the Democrat’s religious faith.
Biden devoutly attends Mass and considers his Catholic upbringing to be a core part of his morality and identity. In 2021, he met with Pope Francis at the Vatican and afterward told reporters that the pontiff said he was a “good Catholic” who should keep receiving Communion.
But Biden’s political stances on gay marriage and support for women having the right to abortion have put him at odds with many conservative Christians.
If I had been aware of Transgender Day of Visibility—which has apparently been a thing since 2009— before yesterday, I had forgotten. But GLAAD is certainly right here: Biden didn’t pick the day. Indeed, he actually issued the proclamation on Friday rather than on Easter Sunday.
He issued a proclamation in 2021—the first year of his presidency—and has done so every year since (cf: 2022 and 2023). A quick Google search revealed, to no surprise, that the Trump White House issued no such proclamations. But, it turns out, neither did the Obama White House. Biden’s 2021 declaration was a historic first.
Alas, Easter is a movable feast occurring on the first Sunday after the full Moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox. And, when it happens to coincide with the Transgender Day of Visibility, it gets canceled, since Transgender Day of Visibility has sole ownership of March 31. Those are the rules.
Except that, it turns out, that didn’t happen. Indeed, Biden also put out a statement celebrating Easter. Which is really confusing, what with him hating Christianity and being busy celebrating Transgender Day of Visibility with his family.
Regardless, the folks on Fox’s “Big Weekend Show” were not happy.
“It’s a random day created by a random person out of Michigan. No president has even marked it as any, you know, any sort of proclamation until 2021. They could have observed it on any other day. Biden chose to observe it on Easter. I think it was with intention. It’s a thumb in the face of Christians and Easter,” co-host Lisa Booth said.
[…]
Booth added, “This is a clear effort and a coordinated effort to remove God from our society and to replace God with false gods, and in this instance, it’s the trans community. They clearly want us to bow at the altar of the trans community instead of bow to God, and even if you don’t believe in God, you should want to live in a society that does, because what God does in society means that we are accountable to something greater than ourselves.”
“As human beings, we’re imperfect, we’re fallible. We’re sinful. We’re all these bad things. The Founding Fathers knew that, which is why they try to protect us from ourselves in the way they devised our government,” she continued. “They try to protect us from our worst impulses as a society, and a society that’s devoid of God has no boundaries. There is no wrong versus right. It is a selfish society, an inward facing society, the kind of society right now that we have. A society where we have drag queens twerking for kids, where we’re mutilating the bodies of young people in the name of transgenderism.”
Co-host David Webb said Biden’s move is part of a strategy for the progressive base.
“It is a blindness, and it is also part of a strategy to not only take religion and play to their hard left, progressive base, out of the conversation and out of society and the new God that is government, but it’s also an attempt to gaslight the American people to get that reaction while they play to a very small base of people who may go along with this. The majority of Americans come from a Christian spirituality, a Judeo-Christian background, Hellenic values, and we believe that that is the foundation of a good society,” he said.
It’s really hard to argue with that.
Their colleagues on “Fox & Friends” were no less eloquent:
“But it is a holy day, and I think one of the things that we’ve been highlighting all throughout the show is the importance of Christians to take responsibility for honoring, making this day holy, not allowing, you know, the commercialization and much less this other pagan path that the trans day visibility is trying to, you know, the White House is trying to overshadow this holy day with that ridiculous proclamation on the same day as the day that our Lord is risen,” Campos-Duffy added.
“It’s a pagan liturgical calendar that they want to make us adhere to,” co-host Pete Hegseth agreed moments later. “And I think a lot of Americans have just had enough of this.”
Why, pretty soon people will be dressing in pastel colors, decorating their houses with bunnies, and having their kids hunt for colored eggs rather than remembering the True Meaning of Easter. The nerve of that guy.
