The Satanic Temple Protests Ten Commandments Monument Outside the Arkansas State Capital; Lawmakers Call Them “a Satire Group”
Nevermind that Separation of Church and State has always been a myth. The Satanic Temple is not just gonna lay down and take it. They fought the erection of a monument to the Ten Commandments in front of the Oklahoma Statehouse by crowdfunding a whopping thirty grand to commission a Baphomet statue. But the Dark Lord’s tribute can’t actually be placed in front of the Oklahoma Statehouse until pending lawsuits with the ACLU over the Ten Commandments monument are settled, which, it turns out, is actually kind of fortunate, because sometimes His Supreme Shadowiness is needed elsewhere. Like the Arkansas State Capital building, where some other schmucks have also erected a statue of the Ten Commandments.
Metal Injection reports that Arkansas’ local ABC affiliate KATV reports that members of The Satanic Temple and the Baphomet sculpture recently showed up at the aforementioned Arkansas State Capital to protest the display of the Ten Commandments. The language of the report makes it fairly clear whose side KATV is on: the introduction says the story will focus on “why [the Satanists] say this was a rally about rights,” thereby implying that there might be doubt that this was the case. And then the reporter on the scene spouts this shit:
“[I]t was quite a spectacle when folks gathered here hoping to bring a Satanic Temple monument here on the Capital grounds. Meanwhile, church members [were] just across the street holding signs, hoping to spread God’s love.”
Awww. The Christians protesting the Satanic protestors just wanna spread God’s love! What is the Satanic Temple’s problem, anyway, going around, making such a spectacle of itself??
This language directly echoes the sentiments of Republican Senator Jason Rapert, who called the Satanic Temple an “extremist group” and argued that the Ten Commandments was erected only as the result of “State legislators repond[ing] to the will of Arkansans;” in the KATV interview, he also accuses the Satanists of being agitators and attention whores.
In his defense, he’s right: the protestors are agitators and attention whores (if you’re walking around in corpse paint, you can safely expect to get sideways glances). Not so much in his defense, to be agitators and attention whores is the entire point of a protest. Protestors, even peaceful ones, have to make some waves, because otherwise shit doesn’t get done. Wearing suits and ties and speaking only at indoor volumes would be, well, bizarre.
In any case, the whole thing is going to court, so expect to hear more about this in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, here’s the KATV report. Take it, Maureen:
