Satanic Holiday Display Damaged in Florida’s Capitol
Pray for the people who put up this display. They need it.
The first questions one must ask are, When did Florida begin allowing Satanic holiday displays in their capitol at Christmas, and why would Satanists feel the need to celebrate the birth of Christ?
While I don’t know the answer to the first question, I’ll take a guess at the second.
Modern Satanists, who desperately want attention, are taking advantage of our politically correct culture. Anyone who has children knows that moment when a child says something like “But you let (insert other child’s name here) have one!”
Following this logic means that if Christians are allowed to erect a Christmas display in the capitol, then Satanists should also be allowed to do so, even if the core of their belief system is the direct antithesis of everything represented by the Christmas holiday.
Like everyone else in America, Satanists are entitled to freedom of speech under the First Amendment; but don’t tell me their display was meant to be anything other than a thumb in the eye to Christians.
Joel Landau of the New York Daily News describes the display:
The organization set up the holiday display, which featured an angel falling into a pit of fire, as a protest for the state allowing a Nativity scene in the government building.
An unidentified woman has been arrested for the damage.
A Florida woman has been arrested for damaging a Satanic Temple holiday display in the capitol building in Tallahassee — a day after it was put up.
An unidentified woman is being held for the incident, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement said. The extent of the damage was not specified.
The display was erected Monday after two years of fighting with the state, which allowed a Christian nativity scene in 2012.
Courts have ruled government properties can host religious displays but they cannot discriminate. This has left some government agencies vulnerable to allowing some religious displays they probably hadn’t envisioned.
The Satanic Temple’s display featured an angel falling into a pit of fire. Writing across the top said, “Happy Holidays from the Satanic Temple.”
The state rejected it last year, calling it “grossly offensive” but the organization threatened a lawsuit if it was denied this year.
If you take nothing else away from this story, remember that it’s Christmas and even Satanists need people to pray for them. In fact, they need it more than most.
Featured image is a screen capture from the New York Daily News.
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Comments
Good for the Christian who defaced that evil.
It is interesting to watch, in real time, the impotency of “the law” on matters of real importance to a people. Despite the bleatings of ‘the lawyers’ we are not muslims, we are not satanists, we are not “the world” we are a Christian people who will rule ourselves. And when, as is happening now, the state and our faith are at odds, there is no legal argument that can be made that will change our loyalties.
There’s a lot of evil in the world. Are you going to confine actions to the low hanging fruit or are you going to extend yourself into areas that really matter?
You still have to live in the world. You can wisely choose not to engage in behaviors or actions that violate your faith but if you decide to wage your own jihad against people doing things with which you disagree, you’re going to cross a very dangerous line.
Sanddog.
What line is that? The line between my civilization and yours?
Do you really think that the bonds of secular law will trump primal forces that drive us all? Do you think they do not apply to Americans in American?
Look to Germany where 17.5 K just marched opposing the muslim invasion of their country–singing Christmas Carols. A Christian people defending their land and their civilisation.
The ‘line’ was crossed decades ago, but not by us.
Expect push-back.
If you want to live in a Xian state, go find one. The USA was founded specifically not to be a Xian state, or of any other particular religion. It was founded on condition that it be completely neutral between religions, and one of the first treaties it signed declared that it was no more a Xian country than it was a Mohammedan one, and that it would treat Mohammedanism and Xianity exactly equally.
There is no question that the Satanists are in the right here. You will not find a first-amendment expert in the world who will tell you anything else. What’s more, if it came to a lawsuit you would find all the Xian religious rights groups, such as the Beckett Foundation and the ACLJ, would file amicus briefs for the Satanists. Because they know that if the Satanists’ rights can be trampled, theirs will be next.
Dear Satanists,
When you are done being angry at whatever “wrong” God has done to you, He wants you to have a chat with you. God loves you.
Kindly remove the third “you”
wish we could edit
I think the third you still works, albeit unintentionally. Some people need to have an honest chat with themselves as well.
Satanic display defaced? The Devil made him/her do it.
Please put me on the jury.
Facts:
-The law protects their freedom of speech.
-They are doing for attention and to piss people.
Solution: Ignore them.
To the people who damaged the display and all the media reporting the issue(That includes this article, sorry.):
Just stop giving them the attention they want for Christ sake!
‘Ignore them” is a ridiculous strategy for several reasons.
1. its a civic space–people tend to look around and notice things in public spaces.
2. Evil cannot abide good. It must desecrate, it must attack, it must destroy; it will not be ignored. it must be stopped.
3. Your reliance on secular ‘law’ is ridiculous. ‘Laws’ are for particular peoples and are honored by the consent of the governed. In Roman times it was ‘the law’ to offer a pinch of incense to the pagan gods. Christians refused and died for their commitment to their higher law. What you are seeing in this act–and in France, Germany and England is particular peoples–Christian peoples–embracing their heritage and telling ‘the law’ to go to hell.
How thoughtful of the Satanists to commemorate the fall of Lucifer. They forgot to add that label to the angel though. Also, how do they know the event happened in December? Did months even exist before the earth was created?
Months were not possible until the moon was created, which was on the fourth day of creation. (Gen 1:16,19)
and why would Satanists feel the need to celebrate the birth of Christ?
I would guess that they don’t, and they’re not. The sign says Happy Holidays, not Merry Christmas.
And the iconography itself – a fallen angel – is a distinctly Old Testament concept, not New.
Um, no, it isn’t. The whole concept of fallen angels, and Satan being an angel who rebelled against God is entirely New Testament. In the Original Testament angels have no free will, and are are thus incapable of defying God, and the Satan is God’s faithful servant. (Note that in the OT “Satan” always appears with the definite article, because it’s a role, not a person.)
The taxman cometh. Spreading Obamacare and jeer. Have you been a good little taxable asset this year? Throw another baby on the barbie.
The Democrat socialist/communist left has to be against things that have worked. They are a divide and conquer party of invaders, tearing down traditional America, appealing to the inner rebellious/greedy child.
So during seasonal Christian celebration, the rebellious haters “act out”, stirring up fires of contempt and hate. They don’t have their own story of what they are for … they have to subvert the Bible story, burning the angels, rioting against law and order.
Fittingly, these haters personify the actual story of “Lucifer”, the angel of light (light bearer) that was kicked out of “heaven”, when his own pride and desire for worship overwhelmed him.
There are supposedly “Luciferian” atheists that “effin love science”. They claim to be progressives that better mankind with their superior intellect, even as to them, religion opiates the masses. But real thinkers don’t choose to burn angels in effigy.
Too often self proclaimed “thinkers” are found with their own prideful issues, as demonstrated by the recent Neil deGrasse Tyson kerfuffle (not that NDT is himself a Luciferian, he seems more Tysonerian). Pride goes before a fall.
Our founders certainly believed in God the Creator above all. The left rebels against their recognized God given liberty, freedom from “the tyranny of the masses”. Serving something greater than the state is anathema to the left (unless it’s the UN). But Christmas is still joyous to most, and Christmas music rings out everywhere.
Actually, you can thank Jay Sekulow and the ACLJ for giving access to the Temple of Satan. In the “Lamb’s Chapel” case, which went before the Supreme Court, he pushed through the doctrine of “viewpoint discrimination”, which essentially means that if a school or other public facility allows one organizations in, they must allow all organizations equal access, regardless of their viewpoint.
So it’s not that the Satanists are saying “you let the Christians do it, so you have to let me do it.” It was the Christians who already started down that road many years ago. The Satanists are just following the trail that they blazed.
The whole point of the Temple of Satan display is that *no* organization should have a display on public ground. But if they allow one, they have to allow them all. Christianity does not and should not have a favored place when it comes to government resources.
This is exactly right. And Sekulow was right to do it, because not only is it the only chance Xians have to retain a place in the public square, it’s also the only reasonable way to read the first amendment.
So it’s not that the Satanists are saying “you let the Christians do it, so you have to let me do it.” It was the Christians who already started down that road many years ago. The Satanists are just following the trail that they blazed
What are you talking about?
Never mind you don’t know.
Did you even read the first paragraph of my post?
The principle was enshrined in law because Christians were looking for ways to use schools for religious purposes. The Supreme Court ruled that if a school allowed any group, like the Boy Scouts, to use their building, then they had to allow everyone in. “Viewpoint discrimination” was not allowed.
At the time, Jay Sekulow of the ACLJ touted that as a great victory for Christians in this country.
The irony is that non-Christians are using exactly that same ruling to get their viewpoints heard. Careful what you wish for…
Sekulow was right, and remains right. It is a great triumph for Xians, and for people of every religion. And if this Satanist display had ended up in court Sekulow would have filed an amicus for the Satanists.
if people deface this one it will be used for an excuse to not allow any displays there.
tread carefully here.
a real damned if you do/don’t situation.
“Following this logic means that if Christians are allowed to erect a Christmas display in the capitol, then Satanists should also be allowed to do so, even if the core of their belief system is the direct antithesis of everything represented by the Christmas holiday.”
That is exactly right. If you allow one religious display in a courthouse, a public building, then you must allow all of them, (provided they break no other laws) no matter how disgusting they may be to you personally. You can’t treat one religion preferentially over the others within a public building.
Personally I think displays shouldn’t be allowed at all, for exactly this reason.
Why should displays not be allowed? In America everyone gets to speak their mind; if you want a place where nobody can say anything that will offend anyone else, you know where to find Singapore.
If they’re allowed in civic buildings, it could be taken as state endorsement of certain viewpoints, religions, etc that are none of the state’s business.
I suppose arguments could be made either way, but long story short, if you allow one you kind of have to allow them all.