Biden Declares Easter Trans
Calendars, How Do They Work?
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.
Random thoughts concerning this issue of massive idiocy.
Why is Easter tied to a pagan calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar?
Since when is trans anti-Christian?
Easter egg hunts are a pagan tradition.
Which church service did Trump attend?
This faux outrage reminds me of Steve Bannon’s stated goal of neutralizing the media by “flooding the zone with bullshit.” Give the people so much nonsense that no one can sort what’s real. Still, one cannot ignore the rich irony of a MAGA stooge lamenting Joe Biden “replacing God with false gods” while Trump is comparing himself to Jesus and selling bibles.
Although I agree with the sentiment, I think this misses the point.
The affront is that the TDoV wasn’t moved or canceled out of “respect” for the “real Americans.”
Having the TDoV on Easter Sunday is an indication that trans people no longer take up a lower position in the natural, God-given hierarchy than the people who should actually matter.
And that’s wrong in their eyes. Real Americans (white, rural, traditional, Christian, etc.) should always have precedence.
This is also why the GOP is increasingly comfortable with the idea of minority rule.
@Scott:
Easter is tied to the Hebrew calendar (which is a lunisolar calendar), specifically the feast of Passover, combined with the later Christian idea that Easter should always fall on a Sunday.
By the way, the Gregorian calendar dates only from the 16th century, which is why Christian Churches that still use the older Julian Calendar for liturgical purposes celebrate Easter on a different date.
This constant outrage is exhausting. Adding this to the non-existent “war on Christmas” and “wHaT AboUt inTerNatIonAl MENS dAy” nonsense. The whining actually drew more attention to Trans Day of Visibility, so thanks for that!
Yet another lesson on the Streisand Effect.
@Scott:
Since “Christians” became anti-Jesus and pro-Trump.
It’s more schizophrenic than that, the Western church thinks March 21 is the equinox, although this year it was March 19.
“Easter calculation”
Snip
“Ēostre”
The same reason as Christmas, take advantage of a preexisting holiday, in this case celebrating a Western Germanic fertility goddess, fertility symbols like bunnies, eggs etc.
No it is not “tied to the Hebrew calendar. “ The first day of Passover is always the 15 of Nissim, a month in the Hebrew calendar, which, as a lunar calendar, is always a full moon. Easter usually, not always, falls during Passover. Not this year, Passover does not start until April 22.
One of the ironies of all of this is that right-wingers probably brought more visibility to the TDoV than anyone else.
@drj: Agreed.
Also, what a world it would be if conservative Christians would remember things like:
And
Both said by the dude being celebrated yesterday.
Sigh.
The worst thing about this post is the headline. It’s a lie and plays into the wheelhouse of the stone throwers. He is Risen, yet we just can’t seem to fathom all that it means.
@charontwo:
Easter is only occasionally March, most years it is April.
“Ēostre”
@Steven L. Taylor: Evangelicals have been doing this for as long as I’ve been alive. Fundy/Evangelical outrage has rescued countless movies from well-deserved obscurity, for example.
@charontwo:
This is nitpicking, but Easter was tied to the Hebrew calendar until the Council of Nicaea (325), when a bunch of bishops decided that they knew better when the lunar month of Nisan should actually occur.
These bishops were mostly Greek-speaking and, I am sure, couldn’t care less about Germanic beliefs mostly prevalent outside the borders of the Roman Empire.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Reverend Sen. Raphael Warnock on CNN:
I wonder what’s going to happen in 2029 when Easter falls on April Fool’s Day?
@drj: FWIW, Orthodox Easter falls on May 5th this year for even more complicated reasons. I will no doubt find myself in some fancy schmancy Russian Orthodox church at midnight, at one point stumbling around the building three times trying to keep a candle lit. The ROC service does everything things, says everything 3 times. Makes it insanely long.
@drj:
Those bishops also didn’t call Easter “Easter”, that called it “Πάσχα (Pascha)”. And indeed, most of the Romance languages even now refer to the holiday with words derived from that word. “Easter” and similar derivations are only found in Germanic languages and didn’t appear until the 12th century.
Related to some of the comments here, a really fascinating thread on the history (or lack thereof) of Easter, Bunnies, and eggs (but mostly bunnies):
https://twitter.com/Cavalorn/status/1380472200508104706
March 31st is also World Backup Day and a few others I forget. I suspect this is mostly the right media lying to people but also that for a lot of people their Christianity is skin deep. Anyone at all knowledgeable about the faith knows Easter changes dates.
Steve
@Neil Hudelson:
The dude seems pretty focused on Anglo-Saxon England, which was not exactly the main locus of Eostre traditions.
@charontwo:
Perhaps, then, you could enlighten us about the actual “main locus of Ēostre traditions?”
@drj:
I take it you missed the bit about west Germanic goddess?
There is more if you follow the link, but there is what I blockquoted here,
@charontwo:
note the fisking references to the venerable Bede:
(Yeah, Anglo-Saxons are technically “west Germanic,” but the term is used here to mean “English”.)
Oh, and, BTW, current traditional seder rituals developed after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, passover was different back at the time of the Last Supper.
The anti-trans have gone so far over the edge. Jon Haidt is out there selling his book about social contagion and social media, and the only real evidence for this stuff is a huge chunk of his audience going nuts online about trans people.
@charontwo:
So the Angles and the Saxons weren’t West Germanic? Where do you think they came from?
(Hint: it’s what is nowadays northwestern Germany, more or less.)
Who, an Anglo-Saxon scholar, is the only one who even mentions the name Ēostre.
You also mention Grimm’s Deutsche Mythologie, while overlooking the fact that Grimm (despite the work’s merits) was pretty much deliberately inventing a common mythology for a nation that didn’t yet exist.
Kevin Drum posted a nice explainer of the date of Easter. Except that each explanation of why they did that creates a new level of why did they do that. The biggie of course is, if the date is tied to Passover, what’s Passover this year got to do with it? Shouldn’t it be Passover in AD 33, or 30, or whenever. How do calendars work indeed.
@gVOR10:
A solar calendar is no less arbitrary than a lunar calendar. The question is just what (lunar or solar cycles) matters more to a particular culture.
The farther away you get from the equator, the less practical lunar calendars become, but that doesn’t make them wrong per se.
EDIT: solar and lunar cycles are equally fixed reference points. Unfortunately, they’re also non-synchronous, but that’s another issue.
@Stormy Dragon:
“He is risen! …April fool!”
The dumbest part of this whole nonsense is that there was at least a week long runway up from the fever dreams of intense anti-social bigots up to the diarrhea brains at Fox and the gullible at the AP.
https://www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-news/easter-sunday-transgender-day-of-visibility
Also, can I ask, exactly WTF are “Hellenic values”. That just seems like some nonsense racist crap dressed up in toga.
@Beth:
Nude wrestling and pederasty?
@Michael Reynolds:
Lesbians and vengeance?
“When she [Luna-Selene the Moon] shone in fullest radiance . . . [the witch] Medea . . . went forth alone upon her roaming way, in the deep stillness of the midnight hour . . . Then to the stars she stretched her arms, and thrice she turned about and thrice bedewed her locks with water, thrice a wailing cry she gave, then kneeling on the stony ground, ‘O Nox (Night) [Nyx], Mother of Mysteries, and all ye golden Astra (Stars) . . . and thou, divine three-formed Hecate . . . and thou, kindly Tellus (Earth) [Gaia], who dost for magic potent herbs provide . . . and Gods of Night (Di Omnes Noctis), be with me now! By your enabling power, at my behest . . . the deep earth groan and ghosts rise from their tombs. Thee too, bright Luna (Moon) [Selene], I banish, though thy throes the clanging bronze assuage; under my spells even my grandsire’s [Sol-Helios the Sun’s] chariot grows pale and Aurora (Dawn) [Eos] pales before my poison’s power.’”
@Beth:
@Michael Reynolds:
Mythology aside, Greek women were by and large confined to their homes, and were not allowed to do much past keeping house and bearing and raising children.
This applied mostly at the upper levels of society, as poorer families needed all available labor for subsistence. This only meant some poor peasant woman would weed the fields in addition to domestic work.
In principle this is not too disimilar from most ancient societies, and many modern ones as well, but the difference in degree is striking. Roman and Egyptian women could own property, where Greek women could not.
So it means things like that.
This whole dumb controversy just reminds me how weird the dynamic is with these two candidates and their broad range of supporters:
On the one hand you have Biden who is the most religiously observant President since Carter, attends church regularly, including on Easter Sunday, carries a rosary with him 24/7, and prays daily.
Then you have Trump, who, as far as anyone can tell, hasn’t attended an Easter service in a couple of years, almost never attended church while in office, never talks about prayer, and is about the least religious and Christian person imaginable in his tone, behavior, and actions.
Now, who would we think supports these two politicians? The opposite of what one uninitiated in the weirdness of American politics would expect.
Atheists, Muslims, people who hate Christianity or all religions, especially those who drone on constantly about the evils of “white Christian men” in America, and the various other groups that typically don’t map onto religious belief overwhelmingly support the devout white Christian man.
Meanwhile, the evangelicals and those who are supposedly the strongest and most strident Christian believers, who constantly talk about their relationship with Jesus and how it’s the most important thing in their lives, support the heathen who doesn’t attend church on the holiest holidays (or most any other time) and never talks about any personal connection with Jesus because – spoiler alert – he doesn’t have one. His ego doesn’t leave room for anything else.
I have not been able to find the link I found this at, I’ll just quote it anyway:
(Except, as I noted, the “Last Seder” was not actually a seder, a type of ritual/ceremony that had not yet been invented).
@Stormy Dragon:
Then at long last, the holiday and calendar date will have merged in common purpose and intended targets (said as an observant Protestant Christian).
@Andy:
It’s only surprising if you take people at their self-assigned labels and the propaganda that comes with them. The Christian faith was not spread by conversion, it was spread at the point of a sword and by the convenient lack of disease immunity in non-European populations. It’s always been a violent, domineering and intolerant religion. Their symbol is a gallows, in effect. They engage in blood-drinking rituals. They think they can carry out any atrocity, then be forgiven with a mumbled prayer and some clacking of beads.
Atheism and agnosticism are not government sanctioned (in most of the western world at least) but come out of skepticism and analysis. We create our own moral laws, and when we break them we don’t have a get-out-of-jail free card. We actually have to practice what we preach. And since we do believe in right and wrong, without biblical obfuscation, we are better able to recognize a good man, whatever his religion, and a bad man, whatever his protestations.
@charontwo:
Found it:
“Found linky“
@Michael Reynolds: @Beth:
And voting on which prominent citizens to compel to take hemlock.
@Andy:
This only seems odd if you accept that the ashes and sack cloth types that profess their “christianity” from every corner are Christian in any meaningful sense of the word. They are not. There is no religous test you need to take before you get a license to call yourself a christian. Anyone can do it at any time. Once you realize these people have taken the name of Christ and some symbols associated with him but nothing else, the oddness goes away.
As to the question, “Why on earth would such obviously non-Christian people embrace it so tightly?”, I think the answer is simple: A technique oft used by the corrupted is to paint themselves all over with a brush dipped in righteousness. At some level they recognize that their true nature is repulsive and have hit on this method to hide it. But it’s only paint, meant to cover the decay and corruption beneath. It is confusing only until you realize what is going on.
@steve:
Given how much of the internet’s infrastructure is maintained by trans people, World Backup Day should be moved, out of respect. They’re busy, they can’t help you when things go wrong.
(It really is a very surprising cluster. Statistically, you would expect some clusters even with a random distribution, but I can’t help wonder if trans folks have some innate interest in dropped packets, DNS and the like)
@Michael Reynolds:
Yes, hence the irony – Biden very much believes in and engages in blood-drinking rituals and the rest of the trappings of the Catholic faith, yet you pretty strongly support him despite your long track record of really, really not liking Christians or religion generally.
@MarkedMan:
Well, yes, labels are fungible. But, as I often repeat, you can look at behavior to get a sense of what people actually value or care about, which is usually more revealing than what they say.
@Moosebreath: Socrates committed suicide by law court. His defense was so ridiculous that the jury had no choice but to go to the only other choice – the death penalty.
@Andy:
Sure, but I was going farther than that. In this case, what they say is merely a cover for them doing the exact opposite. Which makes what they say useful again, as a predictor of what the won’t do.
Odin and Jesus meet Ostara:
“Happy Easter”
(Clip from American Gods, AMC)
I have known a lot of people who make a lot of their Christianity. Not a few made their living off being Christian. It’s really easy to spot the true followers of Christ. They serve the poor, the unfortunate, and the incarcerated, they are kind and don’t judge, they live their faith humbly and with joy. Do unto others as you would have done to you… those folks have my admiration. I am not a believer, but I do respect people who follow the philosophy of Jesus in practice. I try to.
@MarkedMan: that’s the problem with monotheism; the deity-figure (“God”) or his agent (“Jesus”) is nothing more than an instant authority figure to pull up when trying out an argument.
Most American Xians don’t act as if they really believe in their deity. If they actually did they wouldn’t act the way they do.
I can’t get up the outrage at the gaslighting coming from any randomly selected program over at Fox. They do a decent sportsball; other than that, they’re intentionally bad faith all the time unless proven otherwise.. and it’s just exhausting.
These whiny Republicans really need to stop their cancel culture rhetoric. They already have their tax-free safe spaces for hanging out.
They’re entirely wrong, but they’re so fried I can’t get mad at them because their actual beliefs are so incongruous with the reality of Christianity that they’re not playing the same game as genuine compassion. It’s more of a Nelson Muntz point-and-laugh.
“Hellenic values” ‽
What, like slavery, ostracism, and boy-diddlin’?