A military veteran says he decapitated the head of a statue Thursday put on display by The Satanic Temple (TST) at the Iowa State Capitol.
The statue was that of Baphomet, the body of a man and the head of a goat, which TST placed in the state capitol building earlier in December in opposition to the Nativity scene that was also on display.
Michael Cassidy, a former Navy pilot and Christian, said he beheaded the statue and threw the head in a trashcan before turning himself in to the police, according to The Sentinel.
“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 in a statement.
They had their own displays, their own protests, they "filled the capitol with prayers," they did interviews with media outlets who allowed them to put words in our mouths without seeking comment from us & then they vandalized our display anyways. And they still play the victim. https://t.co/rX9Ie9sbyQ
— Lucien Greaves (@LucienGreaves) December 14, 2023
“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.”
The Iowa State Police confirmed to Fox News that Cassidy had been arrested after tearing down the statue, and was charged with 4th-degree criminal mischief.
TST Iowa posted on Facebook that authorities had informed them that the display was “destroyed beyond repair.” Lucien Graves, TST co-founder and spokesperson, also commented on the situation in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“They had their own displays, their own protests, they ‘filled the capitol with prayers,’ they did interviews with media outlets who allowed them to put words in our mouths without seeking comment from us & then they vandalized our display anyways,” Greaves wrote. “And they still play the victim.”
The veteran also cited 1 John 3:8, which states that “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” as further justification for tearing down the statue, according to The Sentinel.
