Republican lawmaker blasts museum for featuring satanic tree at Christmas festival: 'Upside-down cultural propaganda'

The National Railroad Museum in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, is getting into the Christmas spirit with hot chocolate, holiday sing-alongs, and a train ride dressed up as the titular railway from "The Polar Express" for children. The museum also figured it's the season to greet families with a satanic monument and an LGBT propaganda stand.

A Republican congressman has joined some locals in blasting the museum, calling its inclusion of exhibits celebrating the devil and child sex changes "offensive, upside-down cultural propaganda."

The museum is currently celebrating its annual Festival of Trees event, which runs from Nov. 16 until Dec. 31. The festival has been around since 2007 and is reportedly one of the museum's biggest fundraisers.

The Green Bay Press-Gazette indicated that there is nothing explicitly Christian about 60 of the 66 trees featured this year. However, two of the trees are outright hostile to Christianity and the beliefs of its adherents.

The Wisconsin chapter of the Satanic Temple successfully entered its red-lit tree into the festival. The tree is adorned with Luciferian symbols and topped with a red pentacle. In addition to upside-down crosses, there is an ornament that says, "HAIL SANTA."

At the base of the tree is what appears to be a coiled snake along with an icon of the demon Baphomet, depicted with uncovered breasts.

The Satanic Temple is an atheistic leftist organization that has sought to ensure that women can legally have their unborn children killed by way of their "religious abortion ritual"; distributed satanic literature to children; publicly performed "unbaptisms"; held a demonization ceremony in protest of the canonization of the Catholic Spanish priest Junípero Serra; and erected statues of Baphomet on government property.

Blaze News previously indicated that the temple also runs an online clinic out of New Mexico that distributes abortion drugs, which the group has dubbed "Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic."

Jacqueline Frank, the CEO of the museum, told the Press-Gazette that upon receiving the satanists' application to sponsor and decorate a tree, "There was no hesitation. We're not a religious organization. We focus on trains."

"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," said Frank.

While the museum has a rule against decorations promoting violence, sexual content, and drug abuse, Frank evidently figured the depiction of a demon with breasts exposed was all right for a museum welcoming families with young children.

Frank underscored that she was proud to include the anti-Christian activist group's tree and would "absolutely" have the organization back next year.

The other leftist tree featured at Frank's festival was decorated by the radical Bay Area Council on Gender Diversity.

The BACGD is an activist group that advocates on behalf of transvestites and provides a drop-in opportunity for gender-dysphoric minors from the greater Green Bay area.

The transvestite activists' tree is decorated with numerous so-called transgender flag along with agitprop ornaments. One ornament read, "Protect Trans Kids." Another stated, "Drag queen." Other ornaments reportedly affirmed gender dysphoria and transvestism.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wisc.) told Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures," "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."

"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," said Gallagher.

"The shame of it is ... every year the National Railroad Museum does something very interesting and cool and fun for kids, which is they do a big screening of 'Polar Express' and you're surrounded by all the trains, and it's a cool, fun thing to take your kids to," continued Gallagher. "But now ... I don't want my kids to be surrounded by satanic trees."

Matt Batzel, executive director of the conservative grassroots outfit American Majority, tweeted, "Outrageous! National Railroad Museum features a Satanic worship tree."

Pasor Luke Farwell of De Pere, Wisconsin, told Fox News Digital that when he questioned the museum over the the satanic tree, he was met with rhetoric about "inclusivity."

"It seemed a little bizarre to me that someone, based on that, would think it was appropriate to have a Satanic Temple Christmas tree — or tree, I should say. I won't dignify it by calling it a Christmas tree," said Farwell.

Farwell suggested that Christians aren't afforded the kind of latitude they are expected to show radical leftists when it comes to the public expression and profession of their deeply held views. The pastor also noted that the leftists may have a legal right to advance their viewpoints but ought to understand that "Christians find these things to be offensive or definitely targeting them in terms of belittling their faith or how they celebrate the holidays."

The pastor appealed to an insight from C.S. Lewis in closing, quoting the Christian writer as saying, "There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan."

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