A Republican state senator in Michigan heard that a Detroit chapter of a Satantic Temple is planning to set up a holiday display at the state Capitol. So the lawmaker, state Sen. Rick Jones, wants to counter that display with a nativity scene.
“I’m a little outraged that a Satanic group has decided to steal a Christian holiday,” Jones told MLive. “…As a Christian, I think it’s important that we respond to this.”
The Satanic Temple, according to MLive, is planing to put up a display that features a serpent, cross, and “secular message” on the north lawn of the Capitol. The display is supposed to stay from Dec. 21 to 23.
It started when an out-of-state resident asked the Michigan State Capitol Commission for permission to display a nativity scene on the state lawn. That prompted the temple to make its own display request. Jones is trying to bring back the nativity request, which wasn’t approved because the resident couldn’t find someone to take down the display every night.
MLive quoted someone who goes by the name Jex Blackmore, the founder of the Detroit chapter, who said that if there’s going to be a nativity scene on the Capitol, there should be other types of displays as well.
Jones said the whole situation made him “almost as angry as when [then-Gov. Jennifer Granholm (D)] tried to call the Christmas tree a holiday tree, which she later reversed after much protest” in 2006.
“We would prefer that no religious iconography was displayed on Capitol grounds or on state grounds for that matter,” Blackmore said. “But if there was going to be a singular voice represented, we felt it was best to add to that representation of diversity here in Michigan.”
Blackmore also told MLive that her temple doesn’t worship Satan. Instead it just tries to “separate superstition from deeply held religious beliefs.”
As a Christian I think it’s important to … turn the other cheek, no, no no I mean respond to this
Oy. Why do they do this shit? Nothing should be on government property. Period.
“I’m a little outraged that a Satanic group has decided to steal a Christian holiday,” Jones told MLive. “…As a Christian, I think it’s important that we respond to this.”
What an idiot. The Christians stole the holiday from the pagan religions of the time to make their religion more palatable to the masses.
To be fair, it sounds like the Satanic temple trolled the initial nativity scene folks first, and then they failed so this lawmaker’s attempt to get another nativity scene became trolling. I’m willing to bet $100 that if he backed off, calmed down and stopped insisting on ownership over a holiday season that has largely been reduced to nothing more than an excuse for a rawdog capitalist orgy of leg-humping consumerism, the Satanic temple folks would agree not to put their display up if there was going to be any other displays either. Also too, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t want to open the argument to all the historical evidence of pagan worship practices during this season. His is a horribly losing argument.
I’m good with this group that have named themselves The Satanic Temple-- and their method of separating church and state.
As a Christian, I’m dismayed by those who wear their faith like a Scout badge.
Fine if folks want to display their beliefs in their front yard, their place of worship-- in privately-owned locales.
When done on government property?
That’s everyone’s front yard.
jw1