Oh the irony!
In lieu of the Christian holiday of Christmas, both the gays and Satanists decorated trees for Wisconsin’s “Festival of Trees” event.
The event is an annual Wisconsin tradition and aims to feature trees “representing groups across Northeast Wisconsin,” Catholic Vote reported. This year it has 66 trees and takes place inside the National Railroad Museum from November 16 through December 31. Museum reports indicate that roughly 20,000 guests visit the trees each holiday season and the trees are included in the price of museum admission.
This year The Satanic Temple of Wisconsin set up a tree. The group added red lights, Satanic ornaments and even had a plush snake placed around the trunk. The Bay Area Council on Gender Diversity also sponsored a tree. Their tree is decked out with ornaments that say things like “protect trans kids.”
Consider the fact that Christmas is a holiday to celebrate the birth of Jesus. While putting up Christmas trees is relatively pagan, it’s become tradition for those that celebrate. It doesn’t make sense to celebrate Christmas if you don’t believe that Jesus is the reason for the season. Satanists and those who don’t follow the Bible’s teachings, like people who celebrate living as a gender that God didn’t assign, likely don’t celebrate Jesus’ birth. Therefore, the Satanic Temple and the gay group even having a tree seems ridiculous.
Nonetheless, museum CEO Jaqueline Frank insists the presence of those trees is fine as long as they don’t promote violence, drugs or hate.
“We believe that everybody should be included regardless of their religious group, regardless of any business or organization that they're a part of. So we don't discriminate, since we're not a religious group ourselves, we're going to allow anyone who wants to take place to take part,” Frank said.
Related: Governor Calls Satanic Temple in Iowa Statehouse 'Free Speech'
Even still, the displays - particularly the one from the Satanists - received a plethora of backlash.
Here’s what Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) told Fox News:
Conservatives are often accused of launching a culture war or focusing or fixating on cultural issues. But here is a perfect example of how that's not what's happening. What's happening is we're just trying to defend basic traditions or defend our children in the midst of these basic traditions, from the encroachment of woke ideology or offensive upside down cultural propaganda.
Similarly Bishop David L. Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay condemned the tree:
Allowing a traditional understanding of Christmas to be usurped and desecrated by an organization/cult is divisive during a time of the year that we come together in unity as a community. Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. Displaying a Christmas tree with bright red lights, inverted crosses, pentagrams, and other satanic symbolism, with a snake wrapped around the tree where our savior belongs, is not something families and children should be exposed to at any time, but most especially during this Christmas season. The tree is offensive and harms the unity and joy that the Christmas season brings.
I couldn’t agree more. This tree is blasphemous and disgraceful. Christmas is for those who celebrate Christ and this is the complete opposite of that.
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