Police have arrested a Mississippi man who vandalized the pagan idol, Baphomet displayed by The Satanic Temple in the Iowa State Capitol last December. Michael Cassidy of Lauderdale admitted to smashing the statue which Mississippi station WLBT “On Your Side” described as “a ram’s head covered with mirrors on a mannequin.”
Cassidy is now being charged with a hate crime, a Class D felony. Which would seem to put him in the same company as Robert Bowers, the Tree of Life synagogue shooter and Nicholas John Proffitt, the Missouri man who was sentenced for setting fire to the Cape Girardeau Islamic Center. Except that Baphomet is nothing but a made-up, cartoonish winged half-goat, half-human and no more a religious figure than Mickey Mouse. British biblical scholar Philip Davies describes Baphomet as “an absurd assemblage of occult symbols—a kind of esoteric Frankenstein’s Monster” and “an insult to both intelligence and to the true religious impulse of an inspired faith.”
Even members of The Satanic Temple admit they don’t believe in Satan (and it’s in the name!). They don’t believe in magic or the supernatural. So, smashing a statue of Baphomet can be no more a hate crime than ripping up a poster of the Easter Bunny. At least you can believe in the Easter Bunny.
Cassidy told Fox News that his “Christian civil disobedience” drove him to decapitate the dime store devil. He told the conservative website, The Sentinel, “…my conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.” In spite of his virtuous defiance of the forces of darkness, Mr. Cassidy has not reported any incidents of hellfire raining down upon his head. Who will be the next target of his righteous wrath—the Tooth Fairy? The Elf on the Shelf?
A would-be legislator, Cassidy himself has been strongly opposed to hate crimes. While running unsuccessfully for representative in Mississippi, he wrote that the “destruction of statues, infrastructure and houses of worship automatically (should result in) ten years in jail, plus the cost of repair.”
Yikes. It’s a good thing for him Iowa law is different from Cassidy law. Still, he is on the hook for repairing The Satanic Temple’s demon doll to the tune of $750 to $1,500. Sure, that sounds like a lot. But it’s not like you can just go to the Satanic Idol Aisle at Wal Mart and get another one. Fortunately, Mr. Cassidy has been able to raise more than $84,000 for his legal defense from some 2,000 supporters.
The whole Baphomet incident sounds more like a corny TV horror movie than true crime. Gov. Kim Reynolds took time off from dismantling Iowa’s public education to make a show of her disapproval of The Satanic Temple’s display. It even gave Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis an opportunity to have an opinion.
But The Satanic Temple is not a religion. It’s not even genuinely satanic. Baphomet is not even a real false idol. It was invented in the Middle Ages to scare the Knights Templar into false confessions. The image of Baphomet does not come down from antiquity—it was first drawn by Eliphas Levi, a 19th Century occultist and lunatic. Okay, Cassidy should not have pulled off Baphomet’s head. But nobody was hurt in this “hate crime” but the poor janitor who had to clean it up.