DES MOINES, Iowa (KCRG) - On Thursday, the Satanic Temple of Iowa announced that their display at the Iowa Capitol had been significantly damaged.

The controversial display, which Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds called “objectionable,” featured a ram’s head covered with mirrors on a mannequin before being damaged.

Organizers say it’s a symbol of their right to religious freedom.

The Satanic Temple of Iowa posted the following message on their Facebook page:

“This morning, we were informed by authorities that the Baphomet statue in our holiday display was destroyed beyond repair. We are proud to continue our holiday display for the next few days that we have been allotted.

We ask that for safety, visitors travel together and use the 7 Tenets as a reminder for empathy, in the knowledge that justice is being pursued the correct way, through legal means.

KCCI has reported that 35-year-old Michael Cassidy of Lauderdale, Mississippi, was charged with Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree. He has since been released.

Solve et Coagula! Happy Holidays! Hail Satan!”

    • dellish@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      This is the funniest thing. Satan IS part of their religion! I bet if it was a statue of Budda or Muhammad it would have been left alone, but since it’s part of THEIR OWN religion that they don’t like, it get vandalised. Hilarious

      • JimboDHimbo@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        I bet if it was a statue of Budda or Muhammad

        Lol. Lmao. Mfs have literally been killed for less.

        • jeremyparker@programming.dev
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          11 months ago

          Yeah but that was by inbred, ignorant shit heads with a slightly darker skin tone than this inbred ignorant shit head.

        • dellish@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I did think of this just as I wrote it, but I figured it was probably true anyway, and I couldn’t be bothered looking up how to spell some Hindu deity’s name

      • MartinXYZ@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        Something about holding up a mirror… It’s very on point. hypocrites don’t like when you show them their true face.

        • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          The irony is that Muhammad originally said not to portray him because he didn’t want to be turned into an icon; He wanted the worship to go to God instead. He didn’t want people praying to giant altars with his face on it, because that would run counter to his goal that people should be worshipping God. But the fervent attacks on anyone who portrays Muhammad only prove that he is, in fact, being worshipped.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Also, it didn’t say “non-believers aren’t allowed to show my image”, it was just an instruction for Muslims.

            So, attacking a non-Muslim for putting up a picture of Muhammad is doubly wrong. As a non-Muslim, the rule doesn’t apply to them, and as a Muslim, you shouldn’t care because the rule is about who Muslims should worship.

      • model_tar_gz@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        They always like to say that the greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince people that he didn’t exist.

        I disagree. The devil’s greatest trick was changing their name to “God” while blaspheming the morning star—Lucifer— who literally brings light and reason to people’s lives in an otherwise cold, dark, and needlessly cruel world.

      • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Also Satan is objectively less evil than God. In the entire Bible Satan only killed like 10 people whereas God’s death toll is in the tens of thousands.

        • jeremyparker@programming.dev
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          11 months ago

          It’s not just the body count - Yahweh literally tortures innocent people - the Book of Job is the most notable (though there’s many examples of this).

          For those that don’t know it or who want a recap:

          Satan said to Yahweh that his followers just loved him because they were rewarded for it, and if they weren’t, they’d turn on him.

          So Yahweh…proves it? He destroys Job’s livelihood, kills his family, gives him all kinds of diseases and pains, and Job spends the rest of his life homeless and alone, completely ruined, but Job still praises Yahweh. So, hooray, Yahweh wins the bet.

          The thing you really have to remember about this story is that–as it was written–it isn’t real. Maybe there are some factual elements to it, but for the most part, we have this story, not because it’s factual, but because generations and generations of people believed it was a good story to help us understand the nature of God and our relationship to Him.

          The cruelty Yahweh shows to Job is not an exception - it’s literally exemplary. It’s an example.

          • Liz@midwest.social
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            11 months ago

            Job eventually questions Yahweh and Yahweh becomes furious and shows up as a flaming tornado and basically asks him “Who do you think you are, you little punk?” Technically the Satan is proven right. Yahweh does restore Job to his former glory, but all the people he killed in his effort to win a bet don’t come back, they just get replaced with new people.

  • UnculturedSwine@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I feel that destroying it has garnered more attention for TST than they would have received had it been left alone.

  • kautau@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    He’s from Mississippi? Did he drive 12 hours just to go break the display?

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      11 months ago

      That’s what being brainwashed by fucking propaganda will do to a person…

      Reich wing media is a cancer on society.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      11 months ago

      I mean, either that or he was travelling for any number of other reasons that people do. Visiting family is popular this time of year.

      More importantly it ups the chances he doesn’t show for his hearing and either never interacts with cops again, or gets arrested for skipping his hearing next time he interacts with police for any reason, such as a routine traffic stop and jailed until Iowa gets back about whether or not they want him.

  • oleorun@real.lemmy.fan
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    11 months ago

    The 7 Tenets are strong against right wing hate.

    Imagine if doofus had fucked up a nativity scene. His ass would have been tazed several times, he’d be beaten, and the fundies would stop poking holes in wrapped condoms for half a second to be up in arms.

    • lemmydripzdotz123@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      You could improve this by comparing it to someone beheading a statue of Jesus at the state capitol. I don’t know if that has happened, but it would be more likely to elicit the response you describe.

    • CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Nativity scenes get messed with all the time. I see no reason to jump to such extreme conclusions unless youve got a scenario where this actually happened.

      Edit: This is the same thing as Christians inventing persecution basically. I don’t want fellow secularists denying reality to invent unreasonable scenarios where they’re the victim.

        • chumbalumber@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          11 months ago

          Tee-hee! Us few are enlightened enough to recognise the groupthink! I think I shall leave a slightly snarky commenting highlighting how intelligent we are, and how like sheep the other thickos are!

            • chumbalumber@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              11 months ago

              Only if you’re part of the group who, as a group, don’t agree with the groupthink. That is, the group that define themselves in opposition to groupthink. Those with completely independent views to the group. That group.

  • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    These evangelicals are doing a wonderful job of showing the Satanic Temple to be reasonable adults. Every time a loony loses their mind over this, more people compare the two and realize who the baddies actually are.

    • arin@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      You overestimate people, don’t forget Trump had enough voters to win in 2016 🤮

    • jandar_fett@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      It reminds me of the whole “keeping a level head while someone loses their shit on you, to demonstrably prove they’re the asshole”, but writ large.

  • athos77@kbin.social
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    11 months ago

    That’s a misdemeanor. He’ll plead down to something like a fine and maybe some community service, then fundraise the shit out of it - have to pay the lawyer! have to pay the fine! need a giant new American flag for my giant lifted pickup truck! gimme gimme gimme!

    They should sue his ass for all the costs of a replacement statue and everything else they can think of.

    • Adalast@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Jokes on him, that community service is required to be served at the local Satanic Temple. (god I wish I wasn’t making a joke right now)

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        That could happen. There was a plea deal recently where a woman who was an absolute dick to a fast food employee accepted a lesser sentence that required her to work in food service for a specified time.

        You could easily do the same here, and they absolutely should.

        • Adalast@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Oh, I know it could happen. I also recognize that that sort of sentence would almost require the judge to be either A. Sympathetic to TST, B. A fan of ironic punishments, C. A proponent of putting self-righteous assbags in their place, or D. Not a neo-Christian conservative, or some mix of the above. I don’t exactly hold out hope for that being the case in Iowa, but a man can dream.

    • jasory@programming.dev
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      11 months ago

      “They should sue his ass” Given that it’s TST, they’d probably argue that it was a violation of their constitutional protections under the First Amendment (or some similarly insane legal argument they regularly use to embezzle fundraise) .

        • jasory@programming.dev
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          11 months ago

          Are you completely ignorant about TST’s court cases? Read their legal arguments, you can find them at whatever court they’re filed with. They are completely insane, it’s literally a fundraising grift.

          Didn’t they recently try to argue that abortion was a sacred ritual? Completely ignoring that SCOTUS has already ruled that criminal laws are not a violation of religious freedom. (A decision they had to make or else you could found the Church of Posada and legally engage in nuclear terrorism). Literally nobody with a brain would have made that argument, and yet they lied to the public about it’s soundness to fundraise.

          • RageAgainstTheRich@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Read more about what the satanic temple is about. Then read your own comments again. I’m not even going to waste my time explaining it to your dumb dumb ass…

    • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      11 months ago

      Because the whole point of conservatism and Christian Nationalism is that only the right people are protected by the legal system. Everyone else is beneath the law, denied rights and protections, and subject to retribution without cause and due process.

      Conservatives fight to assure those not protected do not gain civil rights.

      The white power movement fights to further reduce rights and protections, and narrow the set of those who qualify for them.

      • jandar_fett@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        These kinds of behaviors are really hammering home that Christians are just nazis with training wheels huh?

        • foyrkopp@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          It’s the quiet part that’s (usually) not said aloud.

          Just take a look at the statistics of how i.e. criminal law is applied much more aggressively to conservative out-groups (PoC, poor, etc.) than conservative in-groups (white, wealthy, etc.). Then have a look at who is proposing politics intended to fix that imbalance an who’s talking about “taking a hard(er) stance on crime”.

          Another, rather specific example: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8769269/Former-abortion-clinic-worker-recalls-pro-life-women-justify-procedures.html

          Once you look our for the pattern, you’ll see it everywhere.

          • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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            11 months ago

            criminal law is applied much more aggressively to conservative out-groups (PoC, poor, etc.) than conservative in-groups (white, wealthy, etc.).

            So in your mind is there a conservative in group and out group as regards sex? I just want a starting point before I delve any further.

            • foyrkopp@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              My comment wasn’t related to sex but more generalized, but, umm - yeah?

              People having heterosexual two-person sex (preferably with a single, consistent partner) are the “in-group”.

              Everyone else is the out-group.

              If anyone ever made i.e. a study to something like police behavior experienced by a “regular” pick-up bar and a gay bar, I’d expect to see some stark differences.

        • kmaismith@lemm.ee
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          11 months ago

          I can’t imagine any would, that is an abstraction developed by not-conservatives trying to wrap head around conservative actions. To have a conservative in power say so overtly would fuel the people being oppressed into coordinated resistance and disgust fence sitters into voting against conservatism

          • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            I’m a conservative, and I think people should be equal under the law.

            What are you seeing that makes it seem otherwise?

            • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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              11 months ago

              What are you seeing that makes it seem otherwise?

              Satanic display at Iowa Capitol vandalized ‘beyond repair’

              Someone seemed to think it was appropriate to vandalize this display specifically.

              • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                So because someone targeted a specific thing here, that’s unequal, and the inequality must therefore be a core belief of conservatives generally? Is that the line of reasoning here?

                • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
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                  11 months ago

                  https://apnews.com/article/satanic-temple-display-vandalized-iowa-capitol-199fb41983a3f3a390b7be370214bb64

                  The display is permitted by rules that govern religious installations inside the Capitol but has drawn criticism from many conservatives, including presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. A Facebook posting by The Satanic Temple on Thursday said the display, known as a Baphomet statue, “was destroyed beyond repair,” though part of it remains.

                  Michael Cassidy, 35, of Lauderdale, Mississippi, was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief, the Iowa Department of Public Safety said Friday. He was released after his arrest.

                  Cassidy is a Republican who was defeated by Democrat Keith Jackson in Mississippi State House District 45 in November.

                  It is possible for someone to be on the Conservative side of the political spectrum and still be a reasonable person who respects equality. It is not possible for a reasonable person who respects equality to support the Republican party.

              • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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                11 months ago

                It’s a misdemeanor vandalism charge, odds are he’s a vaguely attractive white guy with no priors so of course they let him go until his hearing, probably without bail. Only way his odds of being released on his own recognizance would have been higher is if he were a pretty, young white girl.

                I actually personally know a pretty young white girl who got caught in a drug charge out of state, released on her own recognizance pending hearing, came back home, skipped her hearing, got pulled over for a traffic violation back home, jailed for a bit for being a fugitive until the other state could fetch her, taken back to the other state and then released on her own recognizance pending a hearing again despite having explicitly proved that she was a flight risk.

            • brax@sh.itjust.works
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              11 months ago

              If you feel that people should be equal under the law, why do you align politically with the parties that don’t recognize trans rights, homosexuality, worker rights, social support, freedom of religion (not just Christianity), voting rights…

              You don’t believe people are equal under the law. At best, maybe you believe that groups of people are equal under law, but some groups are more equal than others.

            • voidMainVoid@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              This case right here. He thought that it was okay to vandalize a religious display that was from “the wrong religion”, and he’s getting let off with a slap on the wrist.

              • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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                11 months ago

                And the person letting him off is a conservative, I take it? And this is in comparison to a different arrestee who did the same to another display?

        • Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          There is a long history of right wing politicians cloaking themselves in the rhetoric of the left. You can watch it evolve over it’s history as the leftist talking points have… but the one thing that hasn’t changed since the beginning is the way they behave shows a belief in the aggregation of power. Conservatives support a hierarchy with a lot of executive power at the top and a failure state at the bottom. The left looks to broaden and scatter power horizontally…

          It’s part of why complaining that social services and welfare programs are artificially disruptive to a “natural” order and determining and expelling non-citizen underclasses and narrowing the rights to fully participate has existed since the beginning of right wing rhetoric but they never sell it outright as “some people deserve to die poor or to serve in a perpetually subordinate position”. It has always required a grift to get the masses to sign on. It’s also why they tend to pair themselves with the church going crowd. Their base has to believe at some level that inequality is not just natural but justified and that helps when you already have people you veiw as fundamentally inferior.

    • brax@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Because the Christian hegemony rules with an iron fist in the west. A big part of TST’s existence is about bringing that hypocrisy to light.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Perhaps they were simply trying to uphold the separation of church and state. Maybe the thing that caused the attack was “a church display at the state capitol”

    • voracitude@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Hey now, the Judeo-Christian god can’t be a pussy-ass or get butthurt. Both of those require existence 🥁 Bang-on about the delusional losers breaking shit though lol.

      • kmaismith@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        If we call the part of our brain that helps us call label things right and wrong “god” we can see anyone speaking or acting on behalf of “god” as the reality of being on behalf of themselves or whoever put that god into their head

            • TK420@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              god is some man made shit that has no place in our society. People who believe are not very smart, similar to flat earth people.

              I would say I’m sorry, but I’m not, the truth hurts.

  • The Barto@sh.itjust.works
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    11 months ago

    Whenever I hear the phrase Criminal Mischief, I always imagine an old cartoon criminal tip toeing around and up to no good.

  • Facebones@reddthat.com
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    11 months ago

    Interesting though it’s just a mischief charge, if I trashed their Jesus garbage you know DAMN well I’m swimming in hate crime charges.

    • brax@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      If you did it now, wouldn’t lawyers be able to use thos case to get you the same punishment?

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      In Iowa, criminal mischief covers vandalism, and 4th degree criminal mischief means damages between 300-750 dollars. Penalty is up to a year in jail and up to about $2500 in fines if convicted. Since it says he was charged, he wasn’t just let off free, he was released pending hearing aka they aren’t holding him in jail until then.

  • Bruncvik@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    KCCI has reported that 35-year-old Michael Cassidy of Lauderdale, Mississippi, was charged with Criminal Mischief in the 4th Degree. He has since been released.

    What a special snowflake, that one. Bless his heart.

    • Goferking0
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      11 months ago

      Why do you think they hate those hate crime laws so much

      • Facebones@reddthat.com
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        11 months ago

        “It’s not pedophilia if we strip the minimum marriage age laws”

        • Republicans in multiple states
        • Goferking0
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          11 months ago

          the lord intended for us to go after them young