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.”
