As part of public religious displays that Iowa allows in its state capitol, The Satanic Temple set up a display of Baphomet. This isn't the first time that has happened. It is a common occurrence in the United States where fake religions are set up to mock Christians and exploit the idea of religious liberty and pluralism regularly. I won't critique religious liberty or pluralism in this article, but courts have regularly ruled that satirical religions aren't protected under the US Constitution. Very few (if any) official Satanists truly believe in Satan or worship him sincerely. Authentic Satan worship tends to happen in secret by the world's powerful elites, but I digress.
One Christian man, a former US army veteran, travelled to the Iowa Capitol, decapitated the statue of Satan, and threw its head in the trash. Good on him, that's exactly how this mockery should be dealt with when effeminate Christians in power refuse to wield it for good. The most shocking thing about the whole ordeal was Iowan state legislators and pastors defending Satan as part of "freedom" in their state. No classical liberal would have considered Satanism to be a valid public display prior to the 1970s, let alone a Christian. The Satanic Temple may not be about commitment to Satan, but they are committed to a set of postmodern ideas that they will defend with the vervance of any religious devotee.
Yes, the whole thing was a trap and he "fell" for it, now being charged with criminal mischief and the Satanic Temple pressing charges against him. A few things have changed in the past few years and the "neutral public square" is one.
The public destruction of an enemy's statues in the 21st century was started by BLM in the American South. They started with monuments to confederate generals, moved on to other slave owners, including founding fathers. This movement migrated across to the UK in their hunt for slavers. They made an appearance here too and targeted war heroes and early settlers. Prominently the bronze statue of Captain Hamilton was removed from the Hamilton city square.
The destruction of public statues have been defended and advanced by the left without criticism or consideration of the implications.
The game is now pretty straightforward: you destroy our statues and we destroy yours. The idea that everyone's statues can exist in a neutral public square is dead, relegated to a form of secular liberalism that peaked in the 1990s and is now well and truly gone. There is no going back.
This iconoclasm isn't relegated to statues. With the decline of religion and the subsequent politicisation of society, everything is a battleground.
Think about how hard the left here in New Zealand is crying about their sacred cows being desecrated. The removal of Smoke Free Laws and Fair Pay Agreements are hitting the unionists hard, even though they had never been put into practice. The very ideas were sacred so that a vain Herculean effort was undertaken to stop these inevitable repeals, complete with petitions and protests.
The fear they have of Luxon tampering with their sacrament to abortion is palpable. (Unfortunately he won't touch that, but he should.) That fear resulted in a successful campaign to take down National MP Simon O'Connor simply for agreeing with the Roe v Wade decision in the USA, even though like Luxon he would have done nothing practical to bring that about here. His sacrilege alone was worth the effort to punish him from zealous liberals within National and ACT—even though the latter sacrificed more List MPs to achieve it.
In the new year, the coalition government will strike at Co-Governance in earnest, remove the Relationship and Sexuality Education guidelines, and enact many more policies that the left will oppose with a religious fervour.
The stakes are high because absent a belief in a higher power and purpose, for the political activist his/her policy achievements may as well be religious dogma or statues built in service to a deity.
Looking back decades from now, we will see the iconoclasm of BLM to have opened the floodgates to struggle for total victory over the other side in the public sphere. That won't be so bad—if we're the ones who win.