Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisc., on Sunday blasted a satanic Christmas tree display at a railroad museum in his hometown of Green Bay and criticized the museum for its “insufficient response” to public outrage.
“It’s impossible to overstate how offensive this is to Christians,” Gallagher said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.”
“It would be, in quite a literal sense, the same thing as waving a Hamas flag inside of a synagogue,” he continued. “It’s just absolutely crazy that we would allow this to happen.”
The Satanic Temple Wisconsin erected one of the 66 Christmas trees that will be on display at the National Railroad Museum in Ashwaubenon outside Green Bay until Dec. 31, according to Fox News Digital. The tree is decked out with red lights, pentagrams and ornaments proclaiming “Hail Santa!”
Another tree in the museum this year that has drawn scrutiny was reportedly put up by the Bay Area Council on Gender Diversity and is decorated with trans flags and signs saying, “Protect trans kids!”
Responding to local backlash regarding the trees, Museum CEO Jacqueline Frank told a local NBC affiliate that her museum does not discriminate.
“We believe that everybody should be included regardless of their religious group, regardless of any business or organization that they’re a part of,” she said. “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.”
Speaking with Fox News, Gallagher noted that the museum has asserted the satanic tree is “an educational opportunity,” a notion he dismissed as “completely ridiculous.” Explaining that the museum annually screens the animated “Polar Express” film for kids, he said he would now refuse to take his own children to the museum.
“I don’t want them to be surrounded by satanic trees. The local reporting has been insufficient. The whole thing is absurd,” Gallagher said.
He concluded by pushing back on assertions that conservatives are overly fixated on the culture war, noting that the satanic tree debacle at the railroad museum is “a perfect example of how that’s not what’s happening.”
Gallagher said conservatives are “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.”
Gallagher said “the whole thing is a shame” and suggested that cultural battles once confined to elite coastal states are now encroaching on the heartland.
“I thought that Northeast Wisconsin was at least immune to something that you might see in New York or California, but we need to be vigilant as parents,” he said.
The National Railroad Museum did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Christian Post.
The Satanic Temple in neighboring Illinois has drawn similar backlash in recent years for installing satanic holiday displays in the rotunda of the Illinois state Capitol next to a menorah and Christmas tree.
In 2018, it installed a “Snaketivity” statue that depicted a serpent coiling around Eve’s hand to offer her the forbidden fruit.
Other displays in the Illinois state Capitol have included baby Baphomet swaddled in a manger and a crocheted snake resting on a leather-bound copy of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus’ 1543 book “On the Revolution of the Heavenly Spheres,” according to Fox News Digital.
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