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.
We’ve already noted how Curtis Houck complained 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.” 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.