 It's a very dark evil force. And I truly hope people know how to battle that. Shelly Flockhart from Dallas Center says she was shocked to see it at the Capitol. OK, come on in. Flockhart organized a prayer group on Wednesday around the Christmas tree in the center of the Rotunda to oppose the satanic display near the stairwell. She calls it dark and evil and says Christians should spiritually fight against it. One, I hope people realize spiritual warfare is real, that there are evil satanic forces that are trying to infiltrate our state. Once again, American evangelicals are learning that religious freedom doesn't just apply to them. And after the satanic temple in Iowa was given permission to exercise their religious liberty by putting up their own holiday display at the state Capitol, predictably mass hysteria ensued. And many Iowan evangelicals are outraged that the Republican governor is not doing enough about this satanic display. For example, Brad Sherman, a Republican lawmaker in Iowa, called for Governor Kim Reynolds to remove the display and even introduce legislation prohibiting the display. But Kim Reynolds resisted that call and released a statement condemning the display as absolutely objectionable, but ultimately chalked it up to a free speech issue, which enraged her right-wing constituents who called a response milk toast. That's not how you spell that, by the way. And not good enough. Others responded saying, a bad interpretation of the First Amendment doesn't supersede our duties and your duties as a civil magistrate to God. And another person chimed in saying, that is at best a disappointing response. Any authority granted to the governor or any other elected officials come from where and to do what? This display is designed to do one thing. Mock the creator who grants that authority. It should be burned on the Capitol steps. Now, despite the criticism, Kim Reynolds did not capitulate, but in her first statement, as you might have saw, she did encourage people to join her at the Capitol for a mass prayer event. And she tweeted about this referencing, while not naming the satanic display, writing, free speech is a right afforded to all. But how we use it matters. Today's event is proof that in the battle between good and evil, good will always prevail. But of course, people were still angry, but before we get to some more responses, it is important to know why that display deserves to be there. Solan explains, see, the Supreme Court long ago created a loophole in the First Amendment to allow religious displays by arguing that as long as every group gets to have one, it doesn't violate the no establishment of religion clause. By putting up altars to Satan next to the annual nativity scenes, the satanic temple makes their point about the silliness of this loophole. More important, however, is the trolling part. Every year, Christian conservatives discover the satanic display and have a loud public temper tantrum about it. In this, Satanist proved their point. Conservatives claim to respect religious plurality, but it's a lie. The overt religious iconography on government property was always about promoting the Christian nationalist view that theirs is the only real American religion. And that right there is exactly it. So you can either have no religious displays at all on public property, or you can allow all religions to have their own displays, but you don't get to play favorites. You can't have your cake and eat it too, because if you just allow one religion to be on public property, that's unconstitutional. It violates the First Amendment. But since conservatives are constitutionally illiterate, they can't understand why the Republican governor isn't just overriding the constitution and taking it down. And because she's not doing that, it's turned into an all-out scandal for Republican governor Kim Reynolds. Conservative news outlet The Post Millennial reports that Kim Reynolds is under fire over the satanic display and the same Republican lawmaker who introduced the bill to ban it is accusing her of being wrong about the legality of it. But she's right and he's actually wrong, but him pretending as if she can or should do something is 50% cope and 50% pandering to his evangelical base. I think that he's probably jockeying for like higher office here saying, look, she just let the Satanism persist, but I would do something about it. Well, no, you couldn't do anything about it either because that's what the constitution allows. The only thing you could do is take down all religious displays, including the Christian ones, but you don't wanna do that, so you just have to shut the fuck up about it. But I mean, despite this being perfectly legal, obviously so, it hasn't stopped Christian conservatives in the state from shitting themselves and having nonstop temper tantrums. For example, this MAGA account on Twitter called it a mockery of our savior, Jesus Christ's birthday and pointed out that the state of Iowa allowed it because the Satanists quote, follow the rules. Yeah, that's pretty much how that works. But let's watch the clip that he shared because at the end, you'll see why he's so triggered. And you know, where the weekend, the Satanic Temple of Iowa came in, put up their display, a spokesperson for the Iowa Department of Administrative Services said, there's a procedure to apply for getting to have your display there, and they followed that and met the guidelines for that. But this display is located near the east door by the stairs on the first floor. Now today, members of the Satanic Temple of Iowa were on hand with the display. They declined to do an interview. They said, told me to refer to the Satanic Temple website. And on that national site, the main issues they are promoting are abortion as a religious right and establishing after school Satan clubs. I'm sure that's gonna go for well. Now the co-founder of the Satanic Temple responded to backlash and his response was perfectly reasonable. We're going to really relish the opportunity to be represented in a public forum. We don't have a church on every street corner. Luching Reeves, co-founder of the Satanic Temple, says this Satanic display is a symbol for their right of religious freedom. He says, if you don't like it, don't look at it. My feeling is, is that if people don't like our displays in public forums, they don't have to engage with them. Yeah, it's really that simple. And here's the thing, if you actually look at the display itself, nothing that it's promoting is objectionable. And we know this because conservative journalist Libby Emmons of the post millennial filmed the display and it advocates for compassion and empathy as well as justice and individual liberty and science and rectifying one's mistakes for purposes of harm reduction. There is literally nothing objectionable here, but Christian conservatives are just too triggered by the boffermint statute to even consider the objectively good values that the Satanic Temple is promoting. And I say this because the responses to that video indicate that that is indeed the case. Quote, this is spitting in the face of Christian values during the month of Christmas, if at all the times, pure evil, fuck that, smash it. False, since the entire religion was established as a hate group against Christian believers. It's a hate crime and people need to file charges against the state for engaging in religious intimidation and hate. Very, very normal reaction here. This was put up during Advent as a mockery of Christianity. This isn't an established religion with a robust history around which our culture was built and it shouldn't be given the same protections as one. Now, that's not the totality of responses. Many atheists also joined in to troll the butthurt Christians, but there's no shortage of outrage over this statue if you decide to look. You're just seeing like a small snapshot, but I do wanna give credit to one Republican lawmaker in Iowa, Representative John Dunwell, who also happens to be a pastor because he released a really thoughtful and lengthy response following the outrage, explaining how this organization got legal permission in the first place to erect their own holiday display and also explaining that even though he personally finds the display objectionable and antithetical to his worldview as a Christian, he's guided by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and thus can't support its removal. And he also adds, it's just an inanimate object with no real power. Therefore, Christians have no reason to be fearful of it. Now listen, him and I probably disagree on everything, but him and I having opposing views, but maintaining that mutual respect for each of us to practice or not practice what we want or don't want to makes living in a pluralistic society possible. It's called freedom. So as an anti-theist, even though I disagree with him and his religion, I respect his principled statement here in support of the statue. But after releasing this well-reasoned and thoughtful statement, go ahead and take a guess as to how evangelicals responded. Well, of course, they ripped him a new asshole. This person responded saying, I am literally not reading any of that, but to give quarter to enemies of God is pathetic and contemptible. Now he tried to reason with this person with another long and thoughtful response, only to get this response in return. When you stand before the seat of judgment, are you gonna serve our Lord that word salad? And he just responded by saying, saved by grace. Now this person responded to the original post saying, hmm, all these Christians are saying I'm wrong. Clearly they're incorrect, which is a bit of a rip on the principle skinner meme from The Simpsons. He responded to that saying, the path of Christ is a narrow path rejected by most. Another one here, Satanism is not another religion to give credence to. It is the worship of evil per se. To put it on the level of other religions is a mockery of every religion to ever exist. Everyone should be offended by this. His response, I don't want government empowered to make those decisions. Some more responses here. The more words you use to justify a position merely weakens your position. Coward, Jesus himself would have destroyed it just as he did in the temple and threw everyone out. One nation under God, the people who wrote that would not have said, but we are cool to Satan hanging out here too because let's be inclusive. Oh my, that moment when you wake up one morning and realize you've literally become Satan's defense attorney, got'em. And last but not least, you're a big old cuck. Yeah, so there you have it. Now let this be a lesson to everyone. There is no reasoning with Christian supremacists, especially when their emotions are overriding what little logic exists in their tiny brains. And I've learned this the hard way with family. It's just a lost cause. They're operating on an entirely different plane of reality than everyone else. So engaging with them is as useful as engaging with a brick wall. You'll get nowhere. They're just incapable of learning. So it's best to just not even try to convince them because it's not gonna work. They have to at least have that initiative to want to change. But when they're triggered like this, you're not gonna get through to them. But I do have to give them credit for being absolutely fucking hilarious. Unintentionally so, but hilarious nonetheless. So yeah, with that being said, Hail Satan and happy holidays, everyone. Strange that she's not, eh? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Sister! Vigina! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!