A Very GOP Easter

Republicans have their Easter panties in a bunch over two fake stories.

The Easter Bunny is all of us. Photo courtesy of Brian Tyler Cohen on X.

Happy Easter to those “Christians and Catholics” who celebrate, a distinction the Trump campaign awkwardly decided to specify in a press release.

The Trump folks are in a mighty huff over what those Biden White House communists are doing. “Biden’s Blasphemous Declaration of Trans Visibility Day on Easter Sunday” warned a statement from Trump.

Trump, who recently compared himself to Jesus and is selling $60 USA Bibles is of course a recent expert on blasphemy.

Wait, there was more to be upset about! Apparently, the Biden White House had also prohibited children from submitting religious egg designs for the annual Easter Art Event, too. You thought the war on Christmas was bad; just take a look at the war on Easter.

The Fox Network was also hopping mad and got in on the eggtion. Get a load of this headline: Outrage as Biden admin declares solemn Christian holiday “Transgender Day of Visibility.”

It will surprise no readers here to learn that both of these are entirely manufactured, pearl-clutching moments. Let’s address the “no religious egg art” one first—it’s pretty basic and dumb—before we get to the trans visibility day controversy, which really has set extremists’ hair on fire.

No God on the eggs, please

“Religious-themed designs banned from White House Easter egg art contest” screamed the Fox headline, as if this was something new and terrible. The absent context here, of course, was that religious-themed designs have been banned every year from the egg art contest, including under Trump, for good reasons.

There’s of course that pesky First Amendment, which separates matters of church from state support. The White House sponsoring eggs with religious iconography on Easter Sunday might venture fairly far across the line.

But in the very same Fox article, way down near the bottom, the reason for the ban (which again, isn’t a new ban) is clear. I’m going to reprint it in whole in case you have any angry Fox-watching relations or friends who need some gentle correcting:

American Egg Board President and CEO Emily Metz represents America’s egg farmers. She told Fox News Digital after publication of this article that for the past 47 years they’ve partnered with the White House. Metz stated, “I think it’s important to know that everything we do from a marketing and promotion standpoint, because we are a check off, we have very strict guidelines under the USDA.” 

She added, “We all have to follow kind of guidelines, which essentially, number one, we can’t discriminate against any other commodity…. We can’t go out there and say, ‘hey, pork is awful and we only should only get eggs.’ We have to be very, clear about that. We also can’t promote one type of egg over the other type of egg. So we have to be, excuse the pun, egg-nostic. And we also, most importantly, can’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sex, sexual identity, any of that.” 

Metz insisted, “So when we say, can’t be overtly religious, we just can’t be seen to be promoting one religion over the other, the same way we can’t be seen to be promoting one political viewpoint or ideology over the other. We have to be totally neutral in everything we do and have it just be focused on egg promotion and marketing activities. And this is obviously a huge opportunity for us to showcase the incredible eggs in a really fun and unique way.”

Yes, this whole brouhaha over banned religious art is over an egg promotion event. And the CEO of the Egg Board—I just learned there is such a thing as an Egg Board—is actually the one insisting on the “no religious art” rule. Not President Biden.

That fact didn’t stop Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) from weighing in with the stupidest and most dangerously reckless take, saying the ban on religious-themed designs on the White House egg art contest was because Democrats are “a Satanic cult.”

Easter moves around every year

Thanks, Gregorian calendar, for giving Trump and Fox an opening. Sure, the precise day of Easter isn’t fixed, and it hasn’t been for centuries, all thanks to your silly calendar, but boy! When it falls on a day set aside for trans visibility, that’s some extremist gold.

This year, Easter is being celebrated today, March 31. Coincidentally, way back in 2009, the trans community pushed for a single day—March 31—when its members, who are repeatedly abused, bullied and even killed simply for existing, would like some extra recognition and visibility. Maybe it would lead to some focused compassion and understanding from professed Christians.

March 31 has been recognized as Trans Visibility Day ever since. The day wasn’t picked by Joe Biden. He didn’t set up to sabotage or undermine Easter. He is, after all, himself a devout and practicing Catholic. He even recognized it last year on (checks calendar) March 31. And the year before. And the year before. Huh.

“International Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) takes place annually on March 31 to celebrate transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. It was not designed intentionally to fall on Easter Sunday,” wrote Reuters in a fact check, because the media has to address this nonsense all the time now.

In fact, the original organizer chose the end of March “because she wanted some distance from Transgender Day of Remembrance as well as Pride Month, which is in June.” No mention of Jesus’s return there.

The facts haven’t stopped the GOP rage machine from misleading the base, as Brian Stelter, a special correspondent for Vanity Fair, observed in a fun but disturbing compilation. Former wealthy GOP presidential candidate and current Trump coffee boy Vivek Ramaswamy stoked the trans-Easter conspiracy, posting on X, “Joe Biden just proclaimed that ‘Transgender Visibility Day’ is on Sunday, March 31st. I wonder how he came up with that date.”

Radical pundit Tomi Lahren called Biden’s recognition of the Trans Visibility Day “sickening,” “repulsive” and “repugnant.”

Gov. Tate Reeves of Mississippi dubbed it “an intentional attempt to insult and mock Christians across America.”

Here’s Matt Walsh, losing his goddamned mind over it:

Wow, a demon! On Easter, no less.

As a consequence of all this, the Christian right is presently highly frothed up over yet another manufactured controversy, certain that this is a prime example of Biden’s communist, anti-Christian administration, out to destroy a sacred American tradition.

Thank goodness Trans Visibility Day doesn’t overlap Easter again until 2085! Here’s a chart, by the way, of when Easter falls this century, with March 31 highlighted in case we have to do this again in 62 years.

It’s worth noting what else happens to fall on March 31, as CBS News’ David Begnaud did:

• National Crayon Day

• Hug a Medievalist Day

• Cesar Chavez Day

• Dance Marathon Day

• Eiffel Tower Day

• National Baked Ham with Pineapple Day

• National Farm Workers Day

• National Tater Day

Wait, National Tater Day? On Easter?! “BLASPHEMY!” spuddered the Trump campaign.

Other fun fact: Joe Biden’s White House also issued a proclamation in honor of Cesar Chavez Day. So far, no demonic comparisons over that, but I heard that Baked Ham with Pineapple Day is lobbying hard for one, too.

Actor and activist George Takei responded to all this in classic form:

Wait until they find out that Easter falls on my birthday on 4/20 next year and Joe Biden, as the reelected president, proclaims it George Takei and Legalized Pot Day.

Imagine the outrage!