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. Here is that particular segment of the aforementioned interview, as aired on CNN State of the Union on Sunday, March 31st, 2024:
DANA BASH: Republicans are attacking President Biden for recognizing today as Transgender Day of Visibility. I want to be very clear that this day, this Transgender Day of Visibility, is always on March 31st. Has been since 2009. This president has marked it every year since he’s been in The White House. The date of Easter changes year to year. I don’t need to tell you that. The House Speaker called Biden’s announcement abhorrent and said he betrayed the central tenet of Easter. What do you say to that?
RAPHAEL WARNOCK: Well, apparently the Speaker finds trans people abhorrent, and I think he ought to think about that. The fact of the matter is, as you said, March 31st has been a date to lift up transgender people who endure violence and bigotry. Easter, the date changes every single day, but this is just one more instance of folks who have- who do not know how to lead us trying to divide us. And this is the opposite of the Christian faith. Jesus centered the marginalized. He centered the poor and in a moment like this, we need voices, particularly voices of faith, who would use our faith, not as a weapon to beat other people down, but as a bridge to bring all of us together. That is what Martin Luther King, Jr. did. And I’m honored to preach from that pulpit every single day. It is a faith that guides me in my work as a United States Senator trying to cap the cost of insulin so folks can afford it. Trying to make sure first-time homeowners can buy a home and that our children are not so awashed in student debt that they have a mortgage before they have a mortgage. This is how my faith informs me every single day.
DANA BASH: Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock. Thank you so much for being here again, especially on this holy day. Appreciate it. Happy Easter.
WARNOCK: Thank you.
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 tweet
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.
Bash just sits there and blinks as Warnock merchandises this lie, wraps it within both the pieties of his liberationist “Matthew 25 Gospel” and the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, and then proceeds to rattle off some policy pieties.
The Easter-themed interview kicked off the show and was really little more than a thematic imposition of the various liberation ideologies that are in line with the modern left. The early tell, several seconds in, is when Warnock told Bash that he will be putting “the timeless message , Easter message of hope and resurrection into a contemporary context”.
Bash then facilitated the “timeless…Easter message of hope and resurrection” by asking Warnock about the Trump Bible and about “Christian Nationalism”.
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).