The ConWeb got a lot of mileage (and content) out of being angry that Easter (which changes every year) fell on the same day as the Transgender Day of Visibility (which is always on March 31) -- and that President Biden noted the latter.
By Terry Krepel Posted 8/12/2024
We’ve said it before, but the Media Research Center doesn’t do “media research” — it’s a combination narrative-manufacturing operation and right-wing echo chamber, ready to flood the zone with days of coverage on any event they think will get right-wing clicks. Tierin-Rose Mandelburg kicked off one of those manufactured-outrage campaigns in a March 27 post:
This year Easter falls on one of the left’s favorite made up holidays: Transgender Visibility Day. Last week, the board of supervisors in Fairfax County in Northern Virginia decided to prioritize transgender people over the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ that’s celebrated annually.
Washington Examiner summarized the move by saying that members are “sending a message to Christians that they do not matter as they turn one of their holiest days into a celebration of an ideology that undermines the church’s core convictions.”
Chairman Jeff McKay announced the following after the board unanimously decided to hijack Easter and instead celebrate yet another made up holiday for people who have a delusional sense of identity: “As an elected official, it should be our moral responsibility to stand up for all people that we represent, not just the people we like or the people we agree with.”
So you mean to tell me that you’ll stand up for people who are living a lie but not stand up for who created you? Really?
The Washington Examiner brought up a great point when it insisted that the Fairfax area could have chosen literally any other day to honor the transgender folk, especially considering the area is overtly progressive and accepting of the alphabet mafia.
Mandelburg didn’t explain why a public school system must be forced to recognize a religious holiday. But outrage, not logic, was the order of the day. On March 31 — which was both Easter and Transgender Visibility Day — Jorge Bonilla ranted:
On this fine Resurrection Day, CNN chose to come out and defend the Biden administration’s decision to elevate Transgender Visibility Day. The method of choice was via an appeal to authority, with the authority being Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA), who is pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
Bash chose Transgender Visibility Day as the topic with which to close their Easter-themed interview.
[...]
Take notice of the smear of Speaker Mike Johnson that goes unacknowledged, unchecked, and uncorrected. Here is what Johnson actually said, which echoes the sentiments of millions of Christians who object to this White House’s deliberate and, yes, abhorrent provocation.
Johnson is clearly talking about the abhorrence of the White House’s banning of religious decorations and imagery from their Easter egg decorating contest while at the same time elevating and promoting Transgender Day of Visibility. To distill that into “the Speaker finds trans people abhorrent” betrays a lack of pre-show preparation, a lack of reading comprehension, a lack of honesty, or some combination of all of the preceding.
[...]
You’ll be shocked (or not) to learn that this interview in fact featured zero discussion of the resurrected King, who actually had something to say about those who cause harm to children, including the sort of irreversible harm that The White House celebrates today (Matthew 18:6).
Johnson is a right-winger so, despite Bonilla’s spin, there’s no reason to believe that Johnson does not find transgender people abhorrent, as Bonilla also apparently does. Bonilla also let Johnson’s lie about religious messages at the Easter egg hunt pass uncorrected; this policy prohibiting such messages has been in place for decades.
Mandelburg returned to whine further in an April 1 post:
Easter this year ironically fell on one of the left’s made up holidays: Transgender Day of Visibility. Unfortunately, the left chose to celebrate a holiday based on delusion rather than Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Starting off strong, our very own President Joe Biden shared a White House press release indicating his and his administration’s commitment to transgender people. “On Transgender Day of Visibility, we honor the extraordinary courage and contributions of transgender Americans and reaffirm our Nation’s commitment to forming a more perfect Union — where all people are created equal and treated equally throughout their lives,” the March 29 statement read before proclaiming March 31 as the trannie day. “Today, we send a message to all transgender Americans: You are loved. You are heard. You are understood. You belong. You are America, and my entire Administration and I have your back,” it said.
The statement in full was 639 words. Unironically, Biden’s Easter message was only a whopping 94 words.
[...]
It’s disgusting that one of the holiest of holy days was ignored this year and that instead, a day about transgender people was propped up and promoted. The left will do anything to mock faith and Sunday’s events proved that.
A few hours later, Mandelburg whined that “On Friday, just two days before the left obnoxiously celebrated Transgender Day of Visibility instead of Easter, a Texas appeals court upheld a lower court’s injunction blocking the state from investigating parents who help their kids transition with ‘gender-affirming care.’ The decision is contrary to Governor Greg Abbot’s plea to stop these procedures and hold parents accountable for abusing their kids.” Funny, we thought right-wingers believed that parents should always be trusted — apparently they’re criminals for not hating their children for not being heterosexual.
Curtis Houck complained in his writeup of the April 1 White House press briefing that right-wing transphobia over this manufactured controversy was called out by White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and that she explained that "while Easter changes every year, Transgender Day of Visibility is always March 31" and pointed out that the right-wing outrage was "misinformation done on purpose."
Tim Graham touted this “hot item” on “conservative social media” — betraying that it’s all about manufactured outrage, not enlightenment — on his April 1 podcast:
The hot item of the Easter weekend on conservative social media was President Biden’s “compassionate” embrace of Transgender Day of Visibility when it coincided with Easter. Biden chose his woke-left voters over church-going Christian voters. The media rushed to Biden’s defense. Managing Editor Curtis Houck reviews the hot takes on Biden and Trump on TV.
When conservatives began tweeting, the Stelters of the world started the so-called “fact checking.” The date of Easter moves around and our Transgender Day does not! So they didn’t put their Transgender Day on Easter on purpose! but Biden chose to honor it. This should be a sticky wicket for Biden, but it wasn’t. It was a no-brainer on the Left.
Meanwhile, the cable networks quickly broke out the latest Trump attack, that he spent the Christian holy day unloading his Truth Social messages. Suddenly Easter was too holy for Trump, but Biden didn’t clash with the Christians.
Graham then got mad that a little fact-checking blew up the right-wing narrative about the Easter eggs:
NBC News put out a Biden-defense piece titled “Conservatives shell long-standing White House Easter egg contest.” They lamented a flyer circulated by the adjutants general of the National Guard inviting children of National Guard members to submit Easter eggs to the White House contest caused a controversy, with “outlets like Fox News and The Daily Caller writing stories saying the administration is banning religious themes in this year’s contest.”
They admitted this year’s flyer does say that the decorated Easter egg submissions “must not include any questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements.” But the White House insisted the American Egg Board’s “standard non-discrimination language” has been in use for 45 years. Deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said it was “unsurprising” that some “are seeking to divide and weaken our country with cruel, hateful, and dishonest rhetoric.”
“President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit,” Bates added, noting that Biden is “a Christian who celebrates Easter with family.”
Note that Graham has to spin the fact-check of a false right-wing narrative as being done in defense of Biden — as if everything he and the MRC do isn’t in defense of Trump or designed to smear Biden, falsely or otherwise. He didn’t mention that his friends at the right-wing Daily Caller had to retract an article making the false claim.
An April 2 post by comedy cop Alex Christy complained that late-night TV hosts made hay of said outrage:
Stephen Colbert, Biden fundraiser and host of The Late Show on CBS, demanded on Monday that those who condemned President Biden for issuing a proclamation on Easter Sunday recognizing Transgender Day of Visibility get over it because Biden, apparently, has nothing to do with his own actions and because Easter sometimes falls on different days. It was a sentiment echoed by NBC Late Night host Seth Meyers as both men claimed conservatives are hypocrites for not being outraged that Easter sometimes falls on April Fools’ Day.
Colbert was up first, and he, a supposedly devout Catholic, didn’t see what the big deal was, “Over the weekend, Trump also attacked Biden over the fact that Easter, this year, coincided with Transgender Day of Visibility. So what? And Biden had nothing to do with that. Since 2009, International Transgender Day of Visibility has been held annually on March 31. The date of Easter, meanwhile, changes from year to year.”
Sure, Biden didn’t have anything to do with the selection of March 31, but he absolutely had something to do with the proclamation. Nobody forced the White House to do that.
Christy then bizarrely suggested being transgender is like being a drug addict, complete with a religious lecture:
However, Colbert was just getting started, “I’ve got some bad news for people who are upset that another thing was celebrated on Easter this year because it’s gonna keep happening. In 2029, Easter is going to fall on April Fools’ Day. Oh! So my religion is a big joke to you? Is that what it is? Or are you claiming that Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead? It was all a big prank on the apostles. You got Jesus’d! And smoke ’em if you got ’em, because just next year, Easter falls on 4/20.”
If Biden issued a proclamation celebrating drug use on Easter, that would also be wrong. April Fools’ Day, on the other hand, is a fun day that is not contrary to Easter. Transgenderism, on the other hand, relies on the premise that God made a mistake in creating someone male or female. If God makes mistakes, He is not perfect. If he is not perfect, He is not God. If He is not God, He could not have rose from the dead on that first Easter Sunday.
Christy went on to whine that Seth Meyers did much the same as Colbert did:
Like Colbert, Meyers also tried to suggest that Biden had nothing to do with his own proclamation and that Transgender Day of Visibility is analogous to April Fools’ Day, “I can’t believe I have to explain this, but sometimes two things happen on the same day. For example, in 2018, Easter and April Fools’ were the same day, and I don’t recall any Republicans going on Fox and claiming, the sacred resurrection of Christ has been sullied by all these frivolous pranks and goofs, although who can forget when Mary Magdalene rushed to Jesus’ tomb, discovered it was empty, and told Peter and John, ‘My dudes, I think we’ve been pranked.’”
Indeed, two things can happen on the same day, such as two late night hosts completely missing the point.
Actually, the person missing the point is Christy, who is apparently blind to all the manufactured outrage from his side.
Jorge Bonilla ranted in an April 2 post that the manufactured controversy got “no mention whatsoever on any of its Spanish-language social media platforms and feeds. So much for diversity! But rather than covering this shameless pander, the nation’s corporate Spanish-language media enabled it.” He further whined that “the networks covered the transgender parades in Mexico City. In hindsight, a very easy choice. All of the agenda signaling with none of the messy and inconvenient domestic politics,” adding: “And in so doing, both Univision and Telemundo actively aided and abetted the Biden White House in covering and concealing its promotion of Transgender Visibility Day. Time and again, we’ve established that these networks are not representative of the Hispanic community. Rather, they represent the liberal media to the community.” Bonilla didn’t explain why Hispanic media must spew hate at transgender people the way he does.
Mandelburg whined in her weekly April 2 video that is nothing but manufactured anti-LGBT outrage:
Easter happened to fall on the same day as Transgender Visibility Day this year, and President Joe Biden posted a nearly 650 word press release about it. He also shared multiple social media posts honoring transgender people this past Sunday. At the same time, his Easter press release was less than 100 words and he made it very clear that on Sunday, it was more important to celebrate delusion than Jesus.
Later that day, Mandelburg appeared on a little-watched far-right channel to spew more outrage:
On Tuesday, MRCTV’s Tierin-Rose Mandelburg appeared on One America News Network’s In Focus with Alison Steinberg. And though it was April Fools Day, the content the girls talked about was nothing to laugh about, considering how it all showed the moral and mental decline of our nation.
Steinberg asked Mandelburg about Joe Biden’s obvious prioritization of transgender people over Easter this past weekend, after the White House declared a “Transgender Day of Visibility” coinciding with the most significant holiday on the Christian calendar. They concluded that his goal was to virtue signal and convince Christians that they should deny and ignore one of the holiest of holy days in order to praise and promote transgenderism.
Needless to say, his second goal failed. All his attempts to erase the meaning of Easter just made Christians celebrate the day more intently and pray more intensely for these fallen souls.
Mandelburg is lying — Biden did nothing to “erase the meaning of Easter,” and she knows it.
Christy returned to further demonstrate how little he knows about comedy despite being the MRC’s comedy cop in an April 4 post:
The cast of Comedy Central’s Wednesday installment of The Daily Show managed to hit all the wrong notes as it reacted to conservative criticism of President Joe Biden recognizing Easter Sunday as Transgender Visibility Day. Temp host Desi Lydic tried to suggest that Biden had nothing to do with his own proclamations and butchered multiple Biblical references, while correspondent Michael Kosta claimed Christians should be happy because the controversy brought attention to Easter that it normally doesn’t receive because it is just “shitty Christmas.”
Lydic didn’t see what the big deal was, “Yes, by total coincidence, Trans Visibility Day happened to fall on Easter this year. Which seemed like, I don’t know, a good fit to me. I mean, Jesus did identify as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So, live your truth, queen! Now you wouldn’t think Easter falling on a holiday that’s been on March 31 for 15 years would be that big of a deal, but conservatives processed this like a child meeting the Easter Bunny: By losing their [bleep] minds.”
Two things. First, Lydic is spreading heresy to own the cons because God the Son never claimed to be God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Second, nobody forced Biden to issue a proclamation recognizing Transgender Visibility Day. He could have simply ignored it, but he chose not to.
Um, isn’t it the job of a comedian to occasionally say heretical things? Also, nobody’s looking to Lydic for theological guidance. When Lydic pointed out that right-wingers want to eliminate transgender people entirely from society (if not the planet), Christy actually defended the notion: “The Trump whataboutism aside, loving your neighbor does not mean affirming destructive behavior, and not judging people does not mean throwing logic out the window.”
Christy, of course, is quite comfortable being quite judgy of anyone who’s not as heterosexual and right-wing as he is.
WND and Newsmax join in too
WorldNetDaily also got in on the manufactured outrage. Bob Unruh wrote in an April 1 article:
Joe Biden is on the receiving end of a lot of criticism this week for signing a proclamation designating March 31, Easter Sunday, as the transgender “Day of Visibility,” in what many Christians and conservatives see as a blasphemous act.
One of those is Judie Brown, head of the American Life League.
In a statement, she joined top Catholic theologian Cardinal Gerhard Muller, who has condemned Biden’s open defiance of Catholic church teachings, even though he claims to be a faithful Catholic.
Unruh surprisingly admitted that the Transgender Day of Visibility always falls on March 31 while Easter jumps around every year and just happened to fall on that day — but he kept up the outrage anyway, citing the discredited Gateway Pundit:
A report from the Gateway Pundit noted the White House explained the “day” is March 31 every year, and Easter Sunday changes annually, so it was happenstance.
Nevertheless, it was Biden who signed the declaration for the “transgender” event.
The report explained the White House “continued to gaslight millions of Americans after Biden declared Easter Sunday ‘Transgender Day of Visibility.'”
The report called Biden’s actions “blasphemous” and pointed out spokeswoman Karine Jean Pierre said it was “misinformation” that Biden issued the declaration regarding the celebration of a lifestyle that conflicts with biblical teaching.
She said, “So surprised by the misinformation that’s been out there! Every year for the past several years on March 31st – Transgender Day of Visibility is marked!”
An anonymously written article the same day kept up the outrage:
“Christians must confront and defeat this unholy takeover of American society.”
So charges a report at the Federalist following the latest anti-Christian stunt from Joe Biden.
That would be his designation of Easter Sunday as a “Day of Transgender Visibility.”
The White House claimed innocence, saying that the “day” is March 31 every year, and Easter just happened to fall on that day.
However, a report from staff writer Shawn Fleetwood explained it’s not just the day designation that reveals Biden agenda, which was described as “evil” by a spokeswoman for the American Life League.
His report explains the Easter “blasphemy” “leaves no doubt about Democrats’ descent into paganism.”
In fact, Biden stands accused of “hawking the demonic ideology of transgenderism” while Christians were “celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
[…]
Leftists rushed to paint transgenders as victims, he said.
“Why? Because transgenderism is one of the main tenets of Democrats’ pagan faith, meaning any narratives and facts undermining it must be stamped out. The same worldview underlies the Biden administration’s ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’ stunt, leading the neo-pagans to dismiss and desecrate the holiest day of the Christian calendar,” he said.
WND loves to pass off lazy rewrites of opinion columns without offering a balanced viewpoint as “news.”
Unruh touted Donald Trump’s attempt to virtue-signal on the manufactured outrage in an April 4 article:
President Trump has responded to Joe Biden’s designation of Easter Sunday as “Transgender Day of Visibility” with plans for another new “day.”
A “Christian Day of Visibility,” which would be Nov. 5, also election day.
A report at Trending Politics News said Trump told reporters during a visit to Green Bay Wisconsin, “On November 5 we are going to win this state, we’re going to win the White House and we are going to save our country.
“November 5th is going to be called something else. You know what it’s going to be called? Christian Visibility Day, when Christians turn out in numbers that nobody has ever seen before,” he said.
It was Biden who, while banning children from using “religious symbols” in the White House annual egg decorating contest, insisted Easter Sunday was “Transgender Day of Visibility.”
White House officials said it was just chance that it landed on Easter Sunday, even though the Biden declarations specifically cites that day.
[…]
Legacy media defended Biden, claiming the day falls on March 31 every, but Biden had not tweeted about that event until this year.
Biden immediately was the target of criticism for his signature on that “Transgender” promotion proclamation.
Unruh is lying when he claims that Biden was “banning children from using ‘religious symbols’ in the White House annual egg decorating contest” -- a policy prohibiting such messages has been in place for decades, including during Trump’s presidency.
Newsmax hopped on the bandwagon as well. Eric Mack touted Trump and fellow travelers pushing the manufactured outrage in a March 31 article:
The White House openly proclaiming Easter Sunday, the culmination of Holy Week, as the “Transgender Day of Visibility” is blasphemy that warrants an apology to those who observe the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Trump campaign demanded Saturday.
“It is appalling and insulting that Joe Biden’s White House prohibited children from submitting religious egg designs for their Easter Art Event, and formally proclaimed Easter Sunday as ‘Trans Day of Visibility,'” Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a statement.
It is an open attack on Christians, she continued.
[...]
Another pro-Trump voice and former President Bill Clinton accuser Juanita Broaddrick noted the stark contrast in presidents, sharing a video on X of then-President Trump declaring Easter Sunday that we “proclaim with joy, Christ is risen.”
The White House X account posted a quick message, saying “Happy Easter from the Biden-Harris Administration!”
But Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., seized on the day falling on Easter as a proverbial rejection of God.
“Biden and the Democrats decided Easter — the Holy Day of our Savior’s Resurrection — as transgender day of visibility,” Greene posted to X. “There is no length Biden and the Democrats won’t go to to mock your faith, and to thumb his nose at God.
“We know that Christ is King and God will not be mocked, just like we know Joe Biden isn’t really the one calling the shots in the White House. Psalm 37:13: ‘but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he knows their day is coming.'”
Mack didn’t tell his readers that Transgender Day of Visibility has always been on March 31, while Easter changes dates each year and just happened to fall on March 31 this year, and he also failed to counter Leavitt’s claim about religious message in Easter eggs by pointing out the fact that this policy has been in place for decades.
An April 2 article by Nick Koutsobinas hyped a Trump declaration during a Wisconsin rally:
Former President Donald Trump proclaimed during a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on Tuesday that Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024, will be “Christian Visibility Day.”
“On Nov. 5, we’re going to win” Wisconsin, Trump told a packed crowd. “We’re going to win the White House, and we’re going to save our country.”
“And what the hell was [President Joe] Biden thinking when he declared Easter Sunday to be ‘Trans Visibility Day?’ Such total disrespect to Christians. And Nov. 5 is going to be called something else. Do you know what it’s going to be called,” he asked the crowd. “Christian Visibility Day; when Christians turn out in number that nobody has ever seen before.”
Koutsobinas also failed to report that Transgender Day of Visibility has always been on March 31. Newsmax served up an April 1 column by Craig Shirley laughably likening Biden to Pontius Pilate:
Like Pontius Pilate, Biden sold his soul for the sake of the crowd.
He has also forsaken his principles much like Judas sold out Christ for 30 pieces of silver.
Ethics were foreign to Pilate.
Biden has sold out Israel, placating the left-wing antisemites on college campuses.
Of course, Shirley insisted without evidence that Biden “more-than-seemingly went out of his way to honor, not Jesus and the Resurrection, but alternative lifestyles.”
The Media Research Center also published Shirley, which began with this statement: “Note from MRC President Brent Bozell: I came across this op-ed one day after Easter. No matter. It is important to the entire NB family, so we reprint it now.” It says something about Bozell and the MRC that they consider such an unhinged screed “important.”
Newsmax also published a dishonest April 1 column on the subject by Todd Starnes:
The White House is under fire after declaring Easter Sunday as “Transgender Visibility Day.” It’s a direct attack on the holiest day in the Christian faith.
The Biden administration also failed to post a proclamation about Good Friday.
And they banned children from decorating White House Easter Eggs with religious images.
As I wrote in my new book, “Twilight’s Last Gleaming,” I truly believe the Democrats hate Jesus Christ.
Needless to say, Starnes censored the fact that the Easter egg policy is longstanding and the transgender day has always been on March 31.
