Myths of Anti-Christian Bias, Queer Erasure, and the Holidays

Sexual censorship is a favored tactic of the religious right in this country. Very few strategies are more characteristic of their attacks on the nation’s sexual and gender diversity than the practice of lumping these identities together with objects of derision—then contrasting that derision with symbols of blind faith they simultaneously present as benign but also as culturally essential to society.

Consider the Christmas holiday and the discourses associated with it today. The holiday season always features a politically-loaded discourse about a supposed war on Christmas or that there is a war against Christians in the United States. Often touted as a dog whistle of the religious right and the populist far-right aligned with President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, these calls seem to suggest that a systematic hatred of all that is Christian in the United States is perpetual.

Leaders, apologists and adherents of political movements such as these are socialized to believe they are victims of rampant religious persecution orchestrated by so-called “godless secularists,” “radical leftists” and “heathen non-believers.” In the recent words of Fox News host Sean Hannity, “woke churches” are engaging in religious “blasphemy” for a protest Nativity scene.

Hannity was decrying a viral procession of Nativity displays depicting the baby Jesus as a child who is zip-tied by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carrying out mass immigration actions in primarily cities dominated by progressive politicians at odds with the White House. A case can be seen at the Lake Street Church in Evanston, Illinois. Another example is a depiction of the Nativity scene at St. Susanna Parish in Dedham, Massachusetts, featuring a sign that reads, “ICE was here.” In Hannity’s trademark style of white victimhood, the disheveled host said he is a “free speech purist,” but not when such speech is “truly horrifying,” and that “Christmas was under attack” — again. Is there even room to justify a war on Christmas anymore? He thinks so.

An overwhelming majority of Americans see through the charade of a “war on Christmas,” while most additionally don’t see any anti-Christian bias in society at large. Barring the element of the war on Christmas and rising anti-Christian bias, this time in history echoes many prior periods of so-called persecution against the adherents of the Christian church. And, often, such hysteria was conjured out of manufactured crises to advance xenophobic, discriminatory and censorious acts.

Add the dimension that the role of sexual and gender politics plays in this discussion, and there is an overt intersection with traditionalist and more ethnofascistic aspects of claiming such acts as systematic campaigns against Christianity and the theology and iconography of Jesus Christ.

Trump was elected to his second term as president on the promise of making America great again for his “beautiful Christians.” And one of the most popular talking points Trump and his political camp thrust into mainstream politics is the actions he would take to end a systematic “anti-Christian” bias in the federal government and in political culture on the national stage.

He issued a presidential action in February 2025 titled “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.” The order was well-received by religious conservative Christians as it ultimately turned Christian nationalist concepts into official state policy. Zeroing in on the targeting of sexual and gender minorities, the order explicitly highlights “radical transgender ideology” being thrust upon the Christian people in a propagandistic move by the former administration of President Joseph R. Biden. A focus of the order also touched upon the year under Biden when the Transgender Day of Visibility fell on the same day as Easter. Trump decried Biden’s “anti-Christian government.”

The concerns over Easter coinciding with the Transgender Day of Visibility in 2024 were simply manufactured entirely by the far-right. The mere fact that Trump highlighted this in an executive order speaks to not only his delusion or willful ignorance, but also a mass blindness to pluralism.

This is simply one incident out of many. How can there be systematic anti-Christian bias when the majority of the country’s population either identifies as irreligious or identifies as Christian? 28 percent of American adults, per Pew Research Center, identify as “religiously unaffiliated.” Are they anti-religious? No. The majority of that population simply are indifferent or unfazed by any particular religious belief. Pew data also identifies that 62 percent of Americans identify as Christian. Comparatively, Americans who identify as Jewish are well under 2.5 percent of the entire population.

Those who practice Islamic faith in this country are at least 1.34 percent of the population. Add the variables of LGBTQ+ people that are ultimately alienated by the executive order, too; about 9.3 percent of U.S. adults identify as a part of these communities. 1.3 percent of all Americans identify as transgender—simple arithmetic undercuts Trump’s bias claims.

Seeing that the Christmas holiday nears rapidly, the concept of an onslaught against Christians and Christmas traditions is nothing more than a far-right mythmaking emblem of prior history.

For instance, the government in Nazi Germany and the Nazi Party tried to marginalize groups of Christians who were considered to be emphasizing the Jewish origins of the religion too much. This led to the rise of the “Positive Christianity” movement that sought to instill the eugenics and racial extremism of Adolf Hitler’s genocidal regime into Christendom by adding elements of both Nazi occultism and Norse/Germanic mythologies to the story of the Christians and the actual Christmas holiday. This came at the expense of the racial, ethnic, religious, political, sexual and gender minorities that fell victim to Nazism, militarism and administrative evils.

To conclude, I focus squarely on the cases of sexual and gender discrimination because it is the most palpable scapegoat the Republicans and the far-right have today. Think about what Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier did in early November of this year. Uthmeier, a man who presents himself as a devout Christian and supporter of Trump’s policy, sent a letter to the Pensacola City Council asking it to cancel an event featuring drag queens in an upcoming live performance titled “A Drag Queen Christmas.” Uthmeier accused the city council members of supposedly endangering the “public health, safety, or general welfare of the community” for allowing the performance to take place at a venue owned by the municipal government.

He called the performance, which is scheduled for December 23, an “anti-Christian” display that “openly disparages Christian beliefs.” This is utter poppycock. Uthmeier’s letter—alongside the broader campaign to frame queer expression as an affront to Christianity—lays bare the core of these narratives. The myth of “anti-Christian” bias speaks to narrow interpretations of the actual faith itself. It creates this fake diagnosis that overlooks the very real persecution of actual minority groups.

It provides Christian nationalists with the moral vocabulary for suppressing sexual and gender minorities while positioning themselves as the only aggrieved people in the conundrum. This masterful framing allows proponents to recast censorship as “protection,” bigotry as “faith” and state-sanctioned discrimination as a righteous defense of tradition. All the while, it’s state policy.

The irony is that American Christians are neither endangered nor marginalized, in my view. They are the largest religious demographic in the country. As the holidays approach, we should all do well to remember the importance of pluralism in our society and that queerness, Judaism, liberal and progressive interpretations of Christianity, Islam, racial and ethnic diversity aren’t a threat.

Drag shows do not endanger the public health or Christian’s celebrating Christmas. Recognizing transgender visibility doesn’t erode the Christian meaning of Easter. LGBTQ+ individuals in the United States do not erode anyone’s rituals, beliefs, personal ideals, ethics, morals and views. A belief in such deprivation of these rights and liberties for people of different faiths and gender and sexual identities is not only an anti-American act, but—dare I say—wholly anti-Christian.