Days after Christian nationalist hero Michael Cassidy was charged with a hate crime for destroying a Baphomet statue at the Iowa Capitol last December, Iowa Republican and State Senator Sandy Salmon filed a bill banning “Satanic displays or the practice of Satanism on state property.”
Taking a page from a recently introduced Arizona Bill that likewise reads, “Satanic memorials, statues, altars or displays or any other method of representing or honoring satan may not be displayed on public property in this state,” Salmon’s legislation is right to the point:
The state or any political subdivision of the state shall not recognize organizations or individuals who refer to Satan as a deity, worship Satan, or who reference Satan or Satanism as part of the organization’s or individual’s religious practice as an establishment of religion.
and
Displays, symbols, or the practice of Satanic worship shall not be allowed on public property, in public schools, on property owned by public schools, or on any property owned by the state or its political subdivisions.
The Satanic Temple founder Lucien Greaves is incensed about the two bills, saying that the efforts to ban public displays of Satan only breeds more Satanism.
Your flunkies are overplaying your hand, outright attempting to codify Christian Nationalist supremacy in complete ignorance of the Constitution, and in flagrant disregard of democratic principles…You insist that you represent “good,” and that Satan represents “evil.” But then you act in ways that are morally reprehensible, tarnishing your credibility, and the credibility of your faith…
You have abandoned Liberal Democracy in the name of your god, and in doing so, you have given the future to Satan.
Hail Satan
and
h/t the friendly atheist.
