Oh No! Vengeful Republicans Are Gonna Tear Down Our Precious Satanic Statues That Don't Exist!

How will we ever go on?

The Right has really been on real jag lately about the Satanic stuff. Everything is Satanic! There are witches everywhere, casting spells on people and turning them into newts! Why just a few days ago, one of the QAnon idiots did a whole entire thread proving that yours truly is a witch. To be fair, the evidence — that I wear black a lot and have the movie poster for the Ava Gardner picture Tam-Lin/The Devil's Widow as my background picture on Twitter — was very compelling. I do wear black a lot and Roddy McDowell, who directed the movie, is Satan. Or so reruns of Fantasy Island have led me to believe.

Mr. Roarke vs Satan    www.youtube.com 

I'm just glad he didn't find the picture of me dressed as Christine "I'm not a witch, I'm you " O'Donnell a million Halloweens ago, because that would have been damning. There was a pointy hat and everything.

According to one very popular QAnon account, the whole reason why we're making people wear masks is because doing so powers our evil magic that we totally have.

And of course, the Satanists and the Witches are in cahoots with the Leftists, and we're like ... all banding together to destroy America for shits and giggles.

Now, of course there are Satanists and of course there are witches and Wiccans and pagans and what have you, but not in the way these people think there are Satanists or witches.

But I digress.

What, other than wearing masks and Satanic witches are conservatives all in a dither about lately? The tearing down of states of various historical figures, primarily those who enslaved other human beings. This has deeply upset many conservatives, as they have no other way of learning history for some reason — probably because libraries are for socialists.

However,Washington Timescolumnist Cheryl K. Chumley has figured out that two can play this game, and is suggesting that, in order to get us back for all of the Confederate statues we've murdered, conservatives demand to take down all of our very precious statues of Baphomet. You know, the ones the Satanic Temple comes around with every time some dope tries to put up the Ten Commandments somewhere?

The list of statues, memorials and monuments torn down, defaced or destroyed across America grows long.

And now it's Baphomet's turn.

If the standard in this country for deciding on the fate of statues, memorials and monuments has become one of offense — meaning, if the structure offends, it must go — then Christians certainly have cause to go after all-things-Satanic Temple.

Unfortunately, there aren't actually any statues of Baphomet on public property anywhere, so that's going to be really tough. Chumley appears to understand that, but suggests that Christians go onto the private property where they are stored and destroy them.

Some of these satanic shows are seasonal; some are only temporary flashes, making appearances at protests and rallies for political purposes. But they should be rooted out and pulled from their places of storage and destroyed.

They offend.

They're offensive to some.

And if offended anarchists can topple George Washington and Thomas Jefferson under the turned-away eyes of Democrats in government, then Christians deserve the same right to topple, destroy, deface and forever remove from the public eye those images that bring offense to the faith. Goose, meet gander. Right?

Not really!

No one is saying that people can't have a statue of Robert E. Lee in their backyard. Heck, no one is saying they can't drive around with one in the back of a pickup truck. What we don't want is statues of these people in publicly funded areas that are for everyone, and not because they're "offensive." People are offended by loads of things, all day every day. But the difference between this and, say, someone wearing white shoes after Labor Day, is that we don't want to live in a society where we constantly have to explain to children that we're honoring people who owned other people as slaves with statues. We want to live in a society where that is not just a thing that gets brushed off. No one would think to put up a statue of Ted Bundy and go, "Well, I don't see how murdering all of those people takes away from the people he helped while volunteering at that suicide help line."

I think we'd all like to live in a society where enslaving people isn't the kind of thing that just gets brushed off because "Oh, we still need to admire them anyway because they did other stuff, too."

In a statement to Friendly Atheist, Lucien Greaves of The Satanic Temple said:

Baphomet has only ever been requested to be installed where there are already pre-existing 10 Commandments monuments. Just as it is nonsense to say that Baphomet should be destroyed in reply to the removal of Confederate memorials, it is nonsense to argue that Baphomet should be destroyed, in the name of equality, while 10 Commandments monuments should remain. Just because we choose not to venerate American traitors who fought to uphold slavery does not mean we must therefore abandon religious liberty. We have never asked for the 10 Commandments to come down, only that we be allowed to erect Baphomet on the same public grounds where they reside. [...]

Evangelicals have no credible claim that the Baphomet monument diminishes them in any way. We have always been clear regarding the meaning and intention of Baphomet: to celebrate diversity, pluralism, free expression, and religious liberty. Christians who cite a false history based upon conspiracy theories of "Satanic Ritual Abuse" are actually continuing a Christian history of marginalizing and denigrating "others" by way of witch-hunts, inquisitions, and unjustified out-group purges. It is this history, ironically, that gives the Baphomet monument all of the historical gravity that can be afforded "historical" depictions of the Ten Commandments.

Of course, Chumley did try to make the case that, actually, the Ten Commandments should be everywhere because of how they are the basis of our legal system (they are not the basis of our legal system):

The Ten Commandments, of course, isn't simply religious. It's rule of law — it's a basis for America's legal system, and serves as a compass that guides courts and governments down a proper blind-justice, lawful path.

I may not be very holy, but isn't there a ban on graven images somewhere in those commandments? Seems to me like if they truly are the basis of our legal system, we probably shouldn't have statues anywhere.

But hey. You know, if it's really important to people like Cheryl over here, conservatives absolutely should tear down our many statues of Satan and Baphomet that we have permanently installed on public property. Best of luck to them!

[ Friendly Atheist ]

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