In January the Satanic Temple announced plans to erect a monument glorifying the Dark Lord on the front lawn of the Oklahoma Statehouse. [1] An Indiegogo campaign was launched with what seemed like a somewhat lofty goal of $20,000. The goal was rapidly reached and overpassed. “We’re really coming along fast,” said Greaves, whose group claims to have raised more money than needed to go ahead with the project through an online crowd-funding site. [2] The satanic group commissioned a statue of the devil from a sculptor who it won’t identify, as a way of protesting the Sooner State’s placement of a Ten Commandments monument on the Statehouse lawn in Oklahoma City. [3] The statue, being sculpted in a New York studio, is nearly complete, according to Lucien Greaves, spokesman for the Satanic Temple. The statue of the Baphomet, or Sabbatic Goat, a figure that has been used to represent Satan for centuries, is to be made of bronze, poured over a clay mold. To make matters more disturbing for ordinary people, the statue has a smiling child on each knee. Greaves’ organization seeks to force Oklahoma to allow placement of their statue or demonstrate what it considers an unconstitutional double standard. “We decided to go with that because it is a fairly traditional character,” Lucien Greaves, spokesman for The Satanic Temple, told KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City. “It also offers a lap that visitors can come to sit on, have their picture taken with.” [4] The Baphomet, which will stand seven feet tall and be a testament to the glory of the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, would be placed directly beside the sculpture glorifying the laws given to Moses by the Christian God. Oklahoma officials say there is no way in hell that a statue of Satan will ever assume a position at the Capitol. This is what Alex Weintz, spokesman for Gov. Mary Fallin, had to say about the statue:
There will never be a satanic monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma State Capitol and the suggestion that there might be is absurd.[5]
Lucien Greaves
Pictures of the partially-completed monument were first posted on Vice. The Satanic Temple hatched the plan last December after the Ten Commandments monument, presented as a gift from state Rep. Mike Ritze, was placed on the lawn. [6] Because it was a donation, state officials declared that it was permissible to place it on state property. But that prompted Greaves and the Satanic Temple to say they could do the same with a monument of their own. “When we reach out to them and told them of our intentions, the response we got was asking for the design sketches but we never heard back from them,” Greaves said. “As soon as we are ready, we will reach back out to them.” [7] Maybe some people would think that the idea of a Satanic monument sitting on government property in Oklahoma—which is like the Bible Belt’s Bible Belt—seems a bit far-fetched, but Lucien Greaves says that “there has been quite a bit of discussion among legal scholars who recognize how difficult it would actually be for Oklahoma to turn us down… Constitutional law is quite clear on this issue: The state can’t discriminate against viewpoints. If they’ve opened the door for one, they’ve opened it for all.” [8] Ryan Kiesel from the Oklahoma ACLU seems to agree. He told the Libertarian Republic, “If, at the end of the day, the Ten Commandments monument is allowed to remain on the Capitol grounds with its overtly Christian message, then the Satanic Temple’s proposal can’t be rejected because it is of a different religious viewpoint.” [9]
As Trait Thompson of the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission told CNN last December, “Individuals and groups are free to apply to place a monument or statue or artwork.” The applications are then approved or rejected by the Commission. Unfortunately, the state has placed a halt on issuing permits for any other monuments until a lawsuit filed by the ACLU against Ritze’s Commandments monument is settled. [10] The Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sued Oklahoma over the Ten Commandments monument, and the state has placed a moratorium on issuing permits for any other monuments. “We don’t think the state should place religious artifacts on state property unless the people of the entire state agree with its message,” Brady Henderson, legal director of the Oklahoma ACLU, told FoxNews.com. “One of the concerns is that even if you allow all faiths to place something in a public area, it quickly becomes a farce.” Henderson cited an incident at the Florida State House, in which the local government decided to allow all faiths to place holiday decorations in the Statehouse rotunda next to a manger scene. “What happened is that you had someone placing a festivus pole made out of beer cans and one group placing a pile of spaghetti on top of a chair,” he said. “So these types of things do nothing to uplift people’s faiths and beliefs. There’s nothing served by belittling them.” [11]
For those who are deeply worried about the presence of children on the statue and what bad inflence the Stanic Temple may have on them, they have absolutely nothing to fear, according to the Temple’s spokemen. As for the children in the statue, Greaves told CNSNews.com by e-mail, “We feel very strongly for the defense of children, and we specifically set out to make a monument that would be child-friendly.” [12] He also said The Satanic Temple has launched a campaign against corporal punishment and solitary confinement in schools, the Protect Children Project, and has declared next Thursday, May 15, the “Protect Children Day.” [13]
Temple spokesperson Lucien Greaves. Greaves told Vice he has received numerous threats from people who want to attack the sculpture, but that he “wouldn’t expect these outraged and nearly insensible reactionaries to actually know how to assault a bronze monument without severely hurting themselves in the process.” [14] Concerning one of the most popular argument being used against the Temple’s monument is that it doesn’t have “any historical significance for the State of Oklahoma,” as State Representative Paul Wesselhoft told a local news station in January. Wesselhoft is on record saying that “The only reason why the Ten Commandments qualified, is because at the Capitol, what we do is we make laws. We are lawmakers. Well, one of the earliest laws we have are the Ten Commandments.” This, it is important to remember, was said by a current democratically elected member of the legislature. [15] Greaves told Vice that “the idea that the Ten Commandments are foundational to US or Oklahoman law is absurd and obscene… I would argue that the message behind our monument speaks more directly to the formation of US Constitutional values than the Ten Commandments possibly could. It especially does so when it stands directly beside the Ten Commandments, as it affirms no one religion enjoys legal preference.” [16]
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