Rep. Gallagher seeing red over satanic Christmas tree in Wisconsin: ‘Absolutely crazy’
What the devil is going on in Wisconsin?
Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) expressed outrage over a Satanic Temple Christmas tree display at an annual festival in his hometown of Green Bay.
“It’s impossible to overstate how offensive this is to Christians. It would be, in quite a literal sense, the same thing as waving a Hamas flag inside of a synagogue,” Gallagher, 39, told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“It’s just absolutely crazy that we would allow this to happen.”
The National Railroad Museum, which hosts an annual Christmas tree festival in Ashwaubenon, a suburb of Green Bay, permitted the display as one of the 66 trees at the event.
The trees are set to be on display until Dec. 31.
The Satanic Temple’s tree is covered in blood-red lights that seemingly resemble demon eyes with a snake-like figure at the bottom.
One ornament says “Hail Santa,” in an apparent cheeky nod to “Hail Satan.”
While Christians celebrate Christmas as the birth of Jesus Christ, the Satanic Temple largely satirizes religion.
“Worshippers” in the temple are non-theistic and the group advocates for separation of church and state, civil rights and egalitarianism.
Museum CEO Jacqueline Frank contended that the group followed its guidelines by not advocating for violence and stressed that his museum has fostered diversity.
“There was no hesitation. We’re not a religious organization. We focus on trains,” Frank said, per the Green Bay Press Gazette.
“And honestly, the Christmas tree is used by so many different secular and religious organizations. All we’re doing is putting up decoration in that room.”
Gallagher, a father of two who chairs the House China Committee, ripped the museum’s response as “insufficient.”
He explained how the museum typically has a fun screening of the “Polar Express” flick flanked by trains in a “cool” experience for children.
“I wouldn’t take my kids to it now. I don’t want them to be surrounded by Satanic trees,” he said.
“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.”
Gallagher also opined on the lab in Reedly, Calif. that was found to have had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
“Based on our investigation, [the CCP] did not know it existed until the local officials discovered it,” Gallagher said. “We have to do a better job of defending our homeland from a potential attack involving dangerous pathogens.”
The Wisconsin rep went on to sound the alarms about the risk of similar labs operating across the country.
“The honest answer is, we don’t know,” Gallagher replied when asked about how many other labs like that were operating in the US.
“What worries me in doing this investigation … is that if the FBI director or the president turned to the FBI director and said, ‘hey, we need to figure out how many of these we have in the United States,’ they wouldn’t even know where to begin,” he said.
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