Satan In Iowa

The Iowa State Capitol was home to the a statue of the goat-headed pagan idol Baphomet.

It was part of a display in recognition of....

Well, sort of. 

The display was set up by the Satanic Temple which included the statue, an altar with the temple's "seven fundamental tenets" along with a seal surrounded by electric candles. 

Perfect for the festive holiday season, you might say.  

Baphomet and his accompanying display had permission to be there. The Satanic Temple filled out all the correct forms and followed all established procedures for setting up a religious display on government grounds.  

You won't be surprised to hear that people were losing their shit over this display. 

And yes it's the same hard line Christian folk who can put up Ten Commandment slabs and Nativity scenes on government property following the same rules the Satanic Temple followed to put Baphomet up for the display. 

Christians are all for religious freedom. 

As long as it's their religion. 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis offered this nugget of wisdom: “My view would be that’s not a religion that the Founding Fathers were trying to create.”

Do I  really need to enumerate the number of ways that sentence is completely stupid? 

OK, I'll focus on just the big obvious one: I believe the Founding Fathers were creating a country, not a religion. 

There was one Republican and Christian who took a more balanced view of this display.  Rep. Jon Dunwell (R-Iowa) said the display was “objectionable” but that the application process for state Capitol displays (which are open to anyone) “do not discriminate on the basis of religion or ideology.”

Well, that sounds downright reasonable. 

Perhaps reason and calm would prevail to...

Oh fuck that! 

Michael Cassidy, a 35-year-old Navy veteran and former Mississippi House candidate, destroyed the display.  Cassidy is a self described "Christian conservative who loves our nation and is committed to preserving the blessings of liberty bestowed upon us by the Founding generation.”

Cassidy said he destroyed the statue to “awaken Christians to the anti-Christian acts promoted by our government. I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged.  My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.”

And guess where DeSantis is on the actions taken by Cassidy?

"No matter our objections to the beliefs of others, acts of vandalism on public property are never--"

Yeah, I'm lying. Here's what DeSantis had to say.    

“Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government. Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit.”

Acts of violent vandalism against things we don't like or disagree with is the American spirit? Well, sadly, he may be right about that.  

By the way, DeSantis is blaming Donald Trump for this.

Well, how does that work?

An executive order "Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty" signed by Donald  Trump in May 2017 which weakened something called the Johnson Amendment which restricted churches from declaring tax exempt status AND being forums for political discourse. Trump did this as a sop to his evangelical base to help the good Christians who supported him. 

Of course it enabled the Satanic Temple to get tax exempt status.

What's good for the goose, etc, etc, etc.  

By the way, I am curious. What exactly are these seven fundamental tenets of the Satanic Temple? 

• One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
• The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
• One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone.
• The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
• Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
• People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
• Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

Compassion? Empathy? Justice? Nobility? 

Why those damn bastards! No wonder Ron DeSantis is pissed!  

And the Satanic Temple does not believe in Satan as we might understand him from a religious perspective.  Satan serves as a metaphor to promote pragmatic skepticism, rational reciprocity, personal autonomy, and curiosity. Satan is thus used as a symbol representing "the eternal rebel" against arbitrary authority and social norms.  

Thank you, Wikipedia! 

As much as Ron DeSantis wants to cast this as a "good vs evil" kind of thing, a simple search of the Wikipedia entry which is probably beyond Ron's limited intelligence and imagination to provide a more nuanced picture.

Still, Satanic Temple guys, perhaps your marketing could use a little work. Maybe use as your symbol a dolphin or a panda instead of... you know...