ANALYSIS – “Overcomplicating evil.” Last week, U.S. Navy veteran Matthew Cassidy, 35, made headlines when he knocked over a red-cloaked Baphomet (Satan) statue erected near a Nativity scene in the Iowa Capitol rotunda.
He “beheaded” the monstrosity and tossed its silver goat head in the trash before turning himself in. It was reportedly destroyed “beyond repair.”
Cassidy, who served as a Navy pilot and works as a flight instructor, was issued a citation for fourth-degree criminal mischief. Meanwhile, as of Friday, his legal defense fund has raised more than $80,000.
The satanic figure, made from pool noodles, and holding a pentacle, had been placed in the rotunda for the Christmas holidays by the Iowa chapter of The Satanic Temple, which had gotten approval from the state. The grotesque display included a candle-lit altar with the seven “Fundamental Tenets” of the ‘Temple' emblazoned on it.
“The devil is evil, and we should not pretend or act as if he is equal to a Nativity scene,” Cassidy said.
Others, including Christian Republican lawmakers, such as representative Jon Dunwell, took a different tack, defending it on First Amendment grounds.
As the Christian Post (CP) reported:
Cassidy, who unsuccessfully ran for the Mississippi House of Representatives this year, told CP that he bought a plane ticket from Mississippi to Des Moines on Wednesday, toppled the statue the next day, and then flew back. When he encountered the display in person, he said it was more disturbing than the pictures of it online.
Claiming he didn't initially intend to rip down the display when he saw it, Cassidy said he eyed the open doors near the statue and considered just slipping out but felt compelled to do something.
“I don't want to have the conversation with Jesus someday and have Him say, ‘Hey, there was this statue, and you knew it was wrong for it to be up there, but you were afraid of worldly things and worldly consequences, and you were ashamed of me and my opposition to the devil,'” he said.
“The world tells us to be ashamed of God, and He tells us not to be,” Cassidy recounted his thoughts that day. “So that's when I made the decision, which was pretty much right before I took it down.”
But that's not all Cassidy said about the incident. The Republic Sentinel (RS) reported:
Cassidy said … that he destroyed the shrine on Thursday in order to “awaken Christians to the anti-Christian acts promoted by our government.”
“The world may tell Christians to submissively accept the legitimization of Satan, but none of the founders would have considered government sanction of Satanic altars inside Capitol buildings as protected by the First Amendment,” Cassidy told The Sentinel. “Anti-Christian values have steadily been mainstreamed more and more in recent decades, and Christians have largely acted like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot of water.”
This was not the first time that this satanic display had provoked outrage. As the RS noted:
The approval of the shrine drew nationwide backlash from Christians and provoked commentary from senior elected officials. Iowa Republican Governor Kim Reynolds remarked in a statement that she found the display “absolutely objectionable” but said “the best response to objectionable speech is more speech” in a free society. She also appeared at a Tuesday prayer service in the Capitol: “Free speech is a right afforded to all. But how we use it matters.”
Iowa Republican State Representative Jon Dunwell, an ordained minister, issued a defense of the display in which he contended that he finds the statue “objectionable” as a “follower of Christ” but said he does not want “the state evaluating and making determinations about religions,” which he believes would be prohibited by the First Amendment.
Cassidy believes Reynold's and Dunwell's arguments are a misguided interpretation of the Constitution as well as the intentions of those who wrote it. He added that his detractors defending the satanic display on ‘constitutional' grounds are “overcomplicating” the situation and should stand firm against spiritual evil.
“The people who wrote our Constitution would be shocked to think of defending Satan as consistent with their beliefs when they wrote the laws that govern our nation,” he said.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
READ NEXT: Audio Recordings Implicate Ronna McDaniel In Trump's Legal Troubles
