OneOutOfFour / X
CV NEWS FEED // An unidentified hero destroyed a statue of Baphomet–the symbol of the Church of Satan– set up as a “holiday display” outside of the Statehouse in Concord, New Hampshire.
The Post Millennial reports that the Satanic Temple, which is based in Salem, Massachusetts, placed the statue near a Nativity scene outside the Statehouse, and the officials allowed the display to “avoid litigation.”
The statue of the goat-headed occult symbol included yellow eyes, upside-down crosses, and a display of the Satanic Temple’s fundamental tenets.
On the morning of Dec. 9, the statue was found “completely destroyed,” according to the police. Only the legs were left standing. The head had been removed, and everything else was left scattered across the ground.
Police are investigating who destroyed the statue, but they are not treating the act as a high crime.
The Satanic Temple was founded in 2013 and is an atheistic organization, according to its website.
State Rep. Ellen Read, D-Newmarket, had requested that the Satanic Temple display its statue near the Nativity scene to symbolize “our pluralistic society.”
Read said that she is a long-time supporter of the Satanic Temple’s belief and work. Boston.com reports that while Read is not “officially involved” with the Satanic Temple, she signed up as a member online, and she was present at the unveiling of the idol.
“There was nothing inherently offensive about the display. There were accusations that it meant to denigrate Christians,” Read stated, “but there was nothing about it that was denigrating Christians. If you don’t want to allow it for all religions, then you don’t have to allow religious displays.”
Concord Mayor Byron Champlin criticized the display, and he said at a meeting on Dec. 9, after the statue was destroyed, that he would have preferred to oppose the Satanic Temple’s permit.
“I oppose the permit because I believe the request was made not in the interest of promoting religious equity but in order to drive an anti-religious political agenda and because I don’t respond well to legal extortion, threat of litigation,” Champlin stated.
The case bears many similarities to Michael Cassidy’s destruction of a Satanic statue “holiday display” at Iowa’s state capitol, which CatholicVote reported on last year.
Cassidy, a Navy veteran, turned himself into the police and was charged with a hate crime. He stated that he decapitated the statue to “awaken Christians to the anti-Christian acts promoted by our government.”
“The world may tell Christians to submissively accept the legitimization of Satan,” Cassidy said, “but none of the founders would have considered government sanction of Satanic altars inside Capitol buildings as protected by the First Amendment.”
