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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said he would support the legal fund of a man who is accused of vandalizing a display by The Satanic Temple inside the Iowa Capitol on Thursday.

Michael Cassidy was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief for knocking over and destroying a statue erected by the temple inside the capitol, The Des Moines Register first reported.

“Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government,” DeSantis said on X, formerly Twitter. “I’ll chip in to contribute to this veteran’s legal defense fund. Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit.”

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[-] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 207 points 1 year ago

Ron is falling for the trap. This ends with all religious symbols being removed.

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 101 points 1 year ago

Actually, I think this likely ends with Michael Cassidy paying TST for vandalizing their statue. Which means ol' Ronnie is effectively making a donation to TST.

[-] Witchfire@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago

They should send him a thank you letter with the Tenets and sign him up for their mailing list

[-] baldingpudenda@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

TST is not evil. They would not add him to their mailing list.

[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

They would if there was a chance he'd read them:

"The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions"

[-] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 year ago

They don’t have a mailing list actually. Likely because people would sign up religious people just to be annoying.

[-] Jeremyward@lemmy.world 53 points 1 year ago

Who knows with this Supreme Court..

[-] YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world 66 points 1 year ago

The Supreme Court would have to rule Christianity is the only legal religion which violates established law.

[-] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 71 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They could pull the same bullshit they did with the Pledge and the Motto, saying that they were culturally relevant and had no religious effect because nobody takes the pledge or the motto that seriously. "Nativity scenes have a long tradition in local govern buildings yadda yadda christofascism."

[-] LeadSoldier@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago

The fact that the supreme Court can use that argument is insane. Is not washing our hands before surgery American tradition? Is slavery American tradition? Just because we've done something before, doesn't make it legal in any other topic area.

Americans also just renamed some of their Christian holidays in order to pretend that there's equality. My daughter still has to do homework during Chanukkah every night but gets the week of Christmas off but now the same exact vacation from school is called "winter break" so it's totally "not religious now."

[-] ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

My daughter still has to do homework during Chanukkah every night but gets the week of Christmas off

Was just thinking about this with my college, as finals week is during Chanukkah. I don't think concessions should be made for any religion, but it's definitely a blatant sign that christians think they are more important than everyone else and that it's essentially already the state religion in the US.

[-] skydivekingair@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

That would be an argument for not putting the statue up, not a solid case that a random citizen has the right to destroy the property. The statue was up and he has the right to petition or sue for removal, not to take it into his own hands even if the statue was up illegally. But I’m not a law person so I could be off the mark.

[-] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago

So, completely plausible.

[-] Techmaster@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago

Like that would stop them.

[-] TheDannysaur@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Not in Iowa. I live here. They will absolutely remove the Satanic symbol and proclaim that it is because of religious freedom.

...it will make sense to them.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

The courts will not take the same view though. And that's the point.

[-] Pratai@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago

No, it doesn’t. It ends with only Christian shit remaining.

[-] Cranakis@lemmy.one 91 points 1 year ago

Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit.

Which is why the Satanists should prevail Ron.

[-] DigitalTraveler42@lemmy.world 61 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As a Florida resident I have the same comment in my head whenever this idiot racist homophobic governor says shit like this, and that is "don't you have better shit to do?" Because look at all of the problems in this state, meanwhile this idiot is so blinded by his fucking culture war and his religious servility or the lure of the power that these things bring to him.

Meanwhile he's got staffers making campaign videos with Nazi iconography while real Nazis are parading around the state threatening the many Jewish folks here, he's got an entire coastline that's collapsing to unusability because not just he but his predecessor and his entire political party believe that if you ban the term "climate change" from political dialogue the problem will just magically go away. Then you have this fucktard interfering with our already garbage and broken school system, and interfering not in ways to make it better but much much worse, and then making college worse for the actual adults who should be allowed to make their choices on if they want to explore gender or racial studies, while also not having propaganda that literally tells them "it's okay the slaves benefitted from slavery" forced on them because of a bunch of political assholes trying to reshape the world to be more accepting of checks notes fucking slavery.

Fuck Ron DeSantis, fuck Rick Scott, and fuck the Florida GOP, they are garbage people making a vulnerable overly populated state much much worse, the GOP doesn't fix things, they hoard power and wealth that's their only real purposes.

[-] dhork@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago

"don't you have better shit to do?"

What could possibly be more important to a politician than pandering for votes?

[-] VikingHippie@lemmy.wtf 12 points 1 year ago

Slandering women and minorities?

[-] Daxtron2@startrek.website 4 points 1 year ago

It's too close to election season to focus on that

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[-] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 51 points 1 year ago

This is the same guy who had the Nazi campaign video posted on his campaign website? Just checking

[-] endhits@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago
[-] Plavatos@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

Apparently It was a staffer who was since fired, or at least that's who took the fall for it.

Can't find the video for you but here's the still frame in question:

[-] Pratai@lemmy.ca 48 points 1 year ago

Anyone else remember a thing called separation of church and state?

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[-] timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works 33 points 1 year ago

It's nothing more than this shit stain trying to save his flailing and ultimately horrendously unsuccessful campaign.

[-] TheJims@lemmy.world 32 points 1 year ago

If Christ was real he’d be so fucking embarrassed by this the violent idiotic assholes that pretend to follow him.

[-] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 31 points 1 year ago

Classic legal defense in a country that constitutionally cannot favor one religion over another, "it was illegal but we favor your religion to prevail over this other one so it's fine."

[-] crawancon@lemm.ee 22 points 1 year ago

Goooood Gooood let the lack of religious freedom flow through your public support Ron. let your ignorance be your guide

[-] Kase@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

Not that it matters, but I can't tell if you're saying "good good," "good god," or "god god"

[-] crawancon@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

I was emulating palpatine's "good, good."

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[-] TWeaK@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

DeSantis promising other peoples' money for causes that money was not donated for isn't on anyone's bingo cards at this point, because it's practically a given.

Let's not forget that DeSantis used Florida taxpayer money, which was ringfenced for dealing with migrants in Florida, to pay his friend's chartered airline business to ship migrants from Texas to Massachusetts - an act that had no benefit to Florida whatsoever, but certainly benefited his friend's chartered airline (which DeSantis uses frequently on the State taxpayer's dime without disclosing his expenditure.

Criminals gonna crim.

[-] Sanctus@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

The rivers of ruin run deep. We are reaching cartoon levels of corruption and it is only getting worse. The tree of liberty is no longer rotting, it is petrified and put on display, nothing more than a political prop.

[-] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

lol get fukt

[-] ATDA@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

If the government doesn't recognize Satan as a religious figure I've got bad news about Jebus...

[-] BigMacHole@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago
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[-] PeckerBrown@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Doesn't Satan need you back in hell, DeSantis? Please return promptly so you can answer your true Master in person.

[-] art@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Don't sully her name like that. Satan would want nothing to do with an evil like DeSantis.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 8 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Ron DeSantis (R) said he would support the legal fund of a man who is accused of vandalizing a display by The Satanic Temple inside the Iowa Capitol on Thursday.

Michael Cassidy was charged with fourth-degree criminal mischief for knocking over and destroying a statue erected by the temple inside the capitol, The Des Moines Register first reported.

It consisted of a figure of the demon Baphomet with a bejeweled goat head alongside prayer candles.

“We don’t want to yield some kind of power to the government to begin picking and choosing between religious groups,” Satanic Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves said in a CNN interview Thursday.

Cassidy’s legal defense fund raised more than $20,000 in just its first few hours, Newsweek reported, including $10,000 from conservative activist group Turning Point USA.

Cassidy previously ran for a Mississippi congressional seat in 2022, losing to Rep. Michael Guest (R-Miss.)


The original article contains 402 words, the summary contains 147 words. Saved 63%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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