A Fitting Coincidence

The outcry of Donald Trump and other MAGA Republicans over the coinciding of Easter with the Transgender Day of Visibility is yet another example of far-right intolerance and disparagement of anyone who is different. The concept “Let us love one another.” [John 4:7] is absent in all of this shrill and divisive rhetoric.

Trump Bibles for sale on Ebay. Trump supporters are willing, it seems, to spend the Social Security checks he would take away on swag earmarked to pay his legal bills as he fights criminal and civil litigation.

While Trump hawked bibles (only $59.99!), Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary, called for “an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America,” as though all Christians believe transgender persons have no right to exist in our country. House Speaker Mike Johnson jumped in, asserting that the Biden White House “betrayed the central tenet of Easter.” What tenet? “Give justice to the weak, maintain the rights of the afflicted and the destitute?” [Psalms 82:3]. “Be kind to one another?” [Ephesians 4:32]. “God shows no partiality?” [Romans 2:11] ] “Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner?” [Proverbs 14:21] “Judge not that you not be judged?” [Matthew 7:1]

MAGA outrage flies in the face of Jesus’ message, yet that seems to be the trend in Trump’s Republican party, embracing Christ’s name, while disdaining Christ’s message. Russell Moore, editor in chief of Christianity Today, reported that pastors who quoted from the Sermon on the Mount were met with criticism, with congregants rejecting Jesus’ words as “liberal talking points” and “weak.” It seems that “Love your neighbor as yourself” [Mark 12:31] is passé - unless that neighbor is just like you.

The coincidental calendar conjunction was low hanging fruit for Trump, Leavitt, Johnson, and their ilk to further their political agenda of hostility and exclusion, all while dripping in specious righteousness. Just like Mike Johnson’s insistence that the Bible is his “worldview” and “owners manual.” It seems the version of the Bible that Johnson and his cronies are reading is missing a few important pages, but that’s what you get when you switch from King James to the abridged “MAGAs Notes” version.

Whatever. Trump, Leavitt, Johnson, and company are wrong. The coinciding of Easter and the Transgender Day of Visibility is not a betrayal. It is serendipity. It is fitting. And the unstrung fury it has engendered simply shows that while these right-wing extremists proclaim themselves Christian, their actions and words show that they are anything but.