US President Joe Biden issued a peculiar proclamation on Sunday, 31 March. While most people were celebrating the Christian holiday of Easter, he was marking ‘Transgender Day of Visibility’. Given that many Christians are staunchly against transgenderism, it naturally caused quite a bit of outrage among many of his constituents.
So far, it has only manifested itself in angry comments on his social media posts. On Easter Sunday, President Biden (who describes himself as a ‘devout Catholic,’ by the way) shared an image on his Facebook page displaying the text ‘Trans rights are human rights,’ a message that is quite a bit toned-down from his original proclamation. Still, it got heavily ‘ratioed,’ meaning it received more comments (7,500) than likes and other reactions (5,800), which is generally a sign of disapproval on the internet.
As far as polling numbers, it is yet to be shown as polls measured on the 31st and the subsequent few days are yet to be published. However, he is currently not in a position to be able to afford major blunders like this. According to the polling aggregator site FiveThirtyEight, his net favourability rating is lagging behind his 2024 rival Donald Trump’s. As of the time of writing this, President Biden has a net favourability rating of -16.4 percentage points, as opposed to Donald Trump’s -9.9.
That is a 6.5-point advantage for President Trump in favourability.
It is quite remarkable, given the type of coverage the two candidates tend to get in mainstream media, and given the tendency of major pollsters to heavily underpoll President Trump in the past.
The backlash got so strong that President Biden outright denied the fact that he ever issued such a proclamation, and called Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson ‘thoroughly uninformed’ for criticizing him for it. However, Speaker Johnson called his bluff, and published the proclamation itself taken from The White House’s official website on X (Twitter).
The Reaction from Conservative Pundits
Shawn Fleetwood for The Federalist went as far as titling his opinion piece ‘Biden’s Anti-Christian Easter Stunt Leaves No Doubt About Democrats’ Descent Into Paganism’. In it, he points to a pattern of President Biden’s behaviour in which his recent proclamation fits very well, writing:
‘During his presidency, Biden has effectively declared war on Christianity. From prosecuting peaceful pro-lifers protesting outside abortion facilities to infiltrating and monitoring Catholic churches, he and his administration have gone to extreme lengths to persecute Americans who worship God instead of government.’
Meanwhile, our very own Rod Dreher also mentioned the incident in his piece talking about the diminishing church attendance numbers in the United States and Hungary alike. He wrote:
‘Conservative Christians were furious when President Joe Biden officially recognized Easter Sunday as “Transgender Day Of Visibility,” and they were right to be. But Biden could only dare to make such a disrespectful move in a country that is far less Christian than it once was.’
Related articles:
