Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ® said he would support the legal fund of a man who is accused of vandalizing a display by The Satanic Temple inside the Iowa Capitol on Thursday.
Michael Cassidy was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief for knocking over and destroying a statue erected by the temple inside the capitol, The Des Moines Register first reported.
“Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government,” DeSantis said on X, formerly Twitter. “I’ll chip in to contribute to this veteran’s legal defense fund. Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit.”
Ron is falling for the trap. This ends with all religious symbols being removed.
Actually, I think this likely ends with Michael Cassidy paying TST for vandalizing their statue. Which means ol’ Ronnie is effectively making a donation to TST.
They should send him a thank you letter with the Tenets and sign him up for their mailing list
TST is not evil. They would not add him to their mailing list.
They would if there was a chance he’d read them:
“The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions”
They don’t have a mailing list actually. Likely because people would sign up religious people just to be annoying.
You can actually do this already
That card is absolutely wonderful. No notes from me.
Who knows with this Supreme Court…
The Supreme Court would have to rule Christianity is the only legal religion which violates established law.
They could pull the same bullshit they did with the Pledge and the Motto, saying that they were culturally relevant and had no religious effect because nobody takes the pledge or the motto that seriously. “Nativity scenes have a long tradition in local govern buildings yadda yadda christofascism.”
The fact that the supreme Court can use that argument is insane. Is not washing our hands before surgery American tradition? Is slavery American tradition? Just because we’ve done something before, doesn’t make it legal in any other topic area.
Americans also just renamed some of their Christian holidays in order to pretend that there’s equality. My daughter still has to do homework during Chanukkah every night but gets the week of Christmas off but now the same exact vacation from school is called “winter break” so it’s totally “not religious now.”
My daughter still has to do homework during Chanukkah every night but gets the week of Christmas off
Was just thinking about this with my college, as finals week is during Chanukkah. I don’t think concessions should be made for any religion, but it’s definitely a blatant sign that christians think they are more important than everyone else and that it’s essentially already the state religion in the US.
That would be an argument for not putting the statue up, not a solid case that a random citizen has the right to destroy the property. The statue was up and he has the right to petition or sue for removal, not to take it into his own hands even if the statue was up illegally. But I’m not a law person so I could be off the mark.
So, completely plausible.
Like that would stop them.
Not in Iowa. I live here. They will absolutely remove the Satanic symbol and proclaim that it is because of religious freedom.
…it will make sense to them.
The courts will not take the same view though. And that’s the point.
No, it doesn’t. It ends with only Christian shit remaining.
Good
Removed by mod
Not to mock, but to test the separation of church and state and whether all religions really are allowed to participate.
And they have expertly proven their point. It’s always “my freedom”, not “your freedom”.
Also to mock.
Exactly this. While the religion is real, and their morals are pretty tight, they are also encouraged to use this sort of drama to drive separation of church and state.
I don’t think they’re encouraging drama. This story would be a nothing-burger if the Christians hadn’t lost their damn minds about it.
Paraphrased: You don’t think they’re encouraging drama. This wouldn’t have been a story if so much drama wasn’t encouraged.
They know their target :-). The fact that those Christians are so readily triggered by nonsense is predictable.
There is no real religion, they do not believe in Satan, they literally state so, and mostly use it to push back against christian intrusions into government and schools
Belief in an artificial deity does not have to be present asa defining characteristic of religion. They have a strong moral code that they promote and follow with doctrine and practice, which meets the definition of a religion, regardless of supernatural deity.
Not sure if I agree. I’ve never encountered a religion that is not based off the supernatural, the supernatural is the entire core premise of religion in general.
The church of the flying spaghetti monster and the satanic temple are organisations and satirical, but they are not religious in any way.
The dictionary definition of religion includes : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith.
TST has a robust set of tenets that lays out their moral code and belief system, as well as community and ceremony.
As far as other religions that are not based in supernatural deities, look up non-theistic religions and you’ll find flavors of Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, and Jainism that all follow moral teachings of the religion without acknowledgment of the supernatural deity.
The supernatural is just one explanation for ‘why’ you should follow the religion, but the religion is more about the community, system of moral codes, and ceremony, in my opinion.
I had this debate with a southern baptist one time and came to realize that we had very different reasons to follow or not follow a religion. He was not “doing whatever he wanted, like raping and murdering” because he had the fear of god and didn’t want to spend eternity in hell. I don’t do those things because I have empathy for others and my moral code makes me treat others the way I’d like to be treated. If belief in the supernatural helps you be a good person, please continue in your flavor of religious practice. But understand that other people may not need the same supernatural incentives to follow their religious beliefs and that doesn’t mean their beliefs are any less important to them than yours are to you.
Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit.
Which is why the Satanists should prevail Ron.
As a Florida resident I have the same comment in my head whenever this idiot racist homophobic governor says shit like this, and that is “don’t you have better shit to do?” Because look at all of the problems in this state, meanwhile this idiot is so blinded by his fucking culture war and his religious servility or the lure of the power that these things bring to him.
Meanwhile he’s got staffers making campaign videos with Nazi iconography while real Nazis are parading around the state threatening the many Jewish folks here, he’s got an entire coastline that’s collapsing to unusability because not just he but his predecessor and his entire political party believe that if you ban the term “climate change” from political dialogue the problem will just magically go away. Then you have this fucktard interfering with our already garbage and broken school system, and interfering not in ways to make it better but much much worse, and then making college worse for the actual adults who should be allowed to make their choices on if they want to explore gender or racial studies, while also not having propaganda that literally tells them “it’s okay the slaves benefitted from slavery” forced on them because of a bunch of political assholes trying to reshape the world to be more accepting of checks notes fucking slavery.
Fuck Ron DeSantis, fuck Rick Scott, and fuck the Florida GOP, they are garbage people making a vulnerable overly populated state much much worse, the GOP doesn’t fix things, they hoard power and wealth that’s their only real purposes.
“don’t you have better shit to do?”
What could possibly be more important to a politician than pandering for votes?
Slandering women and minorities?
It’s too close to election season to focus on that
That’s the main problem with the GOP, they’re too much “politician” and not enough “leader” or “fixer”, it’s all about greed and power with them rather than trying to solve problems for the people that they’re supposed to be responsible.
Part of the problem is also conservatism/“libertarianism”, like what’s the point of being elected to government positions when you don’t even believe the government should exist? They’re just saboteurs undermining efforts to drag this country into the future.
This is the same guy who had the Nazi campaign video posted on his campaign website? Just checking
Link for the lazy?
Apparently It was a staffer who was since fired, or at least that’s who took the fall for it.
Can’t find the video for you but here’s the still frame in question:
Anyone else remember a thing called separation of church and state?
And when has that been a thing?
Mmm down votes for making a joke so fun.
Since 1791.
In France - every second of every day for about a century (?) or so… until very recently when Macron did something. Just seems a pity that US politicians are too stupid / ignorant to understand their own history - even if it’s an incredibly short span of time; relatively speaking
If Christ was real he’d be so fucking embarrassed by this the violent idiotic assholes that pretend to follow him.
It’s nothing more than this shit stain trying to save his flailing and ultimately horrendously unsuccessful campaign.
Classic legal defense in a country that constitutionally cannot favor one religion over another, “it was illegal but we favor your religion to prevail over this other one so it’s fine.”
Goooood Gooood let the lack of religious freedom flow through your public support Ron. let your ignorance be your guide
Not that it matters, but I can’t tell if you’re saying “good good,” “good god,” or “god god”
I was emulating palpatine’s “good, good.”
I read it in Emperor Palpatine’s voice
DeSantis promising other peoples’ money for causes that money was not donated for isn’t on anyone’s bingo cards at this point, because it’s practically a given.
Let’s not forget that DeSantis used Florida taxpayer money, which was ringfenced for dealing with migrants in Florida, to pay his friend’s chartered airline business to ship migrants from Texas to Massachusetts - an act that had no benefit to Florida whatsoever, but certainly benefited his friend’s chartered airline (which DeSantis uses frequently on the State taxpayer’s dime without disclosing his expenditure.
Criminals gonna crim.
The rivers of ruin run deep. We are reaching cartoon levels of corruption and it is only getting worse. The tree of liberty is no longer rotting, it is petrified and put on display, nothing more than a political prop.
lol get fukt
If the government doesn’t recognize Satan as a religious figure I’ve got bad news about Jebus…
Law and. . .Order?
sad DUN DUN
Doesn’t Satan need you back in hell, DeSantis? Please return promptly so you can answer your true Master in person.
Don’t sully her name like that. Satan would want nothing to do with an evil like DeSantis.
