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Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Turning Point USA pledged $10,000 for Irishman Christian, Michael Cassidy, after he beheaded Baphomet head and destroyed Satan idol at Iowa Capitol.
He also said, “Anti-Christian values have steadily been mainstreamed more and more in recent decades, and Christians have largely acted like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot of water.”
He continued, “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.”
“We don’t want to yield some kind of power to the government to begin picking and choosing between religious groups,” Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves said in a CNN interview Thursday. “People might hate us and people might want to exclude us, but that simply opens the door to more sectarian battles, and it certainly won’t stop there.”
The organization has previously protested religious prayer at schools by organizing afterschool Satanist Temple clubs, arguing that its religious beliefs protect the right to abortion access, and chastising religious imagery and phrases in government.
In response to the display, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) chastised the temple but stood by state law allowing its display.
Cassidy, who identifies as a Christian, said that he was motivated to destroy the display by his faith and his concern for the country.
He told the Sentinel, “The world may tell Christians to submissively accept the legitimization of Satan, but none of the founders would have considered government sanction of Satanic altars inside Capitol buildings as protected by the First Amendment.”
The Satanic Temple display was permitted under Iowa law allowing any religious organization to hold a display inside the Capitol. It consisted of a figure of the demon Baphomet with a bejeweled goat head alongside prayer candles.
The non-theistic religious organization has frequently used satanic imagery to protest laws in the U.S. using religious freedom arguments. Satanists do not literally believe in or pray to a biblical Satan, but they refer to the literary idea of Satan to promote skepticism and curiosity.
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