Recently at the State capitol building in Des Moines, Iowa, a Satanic statue was decapitated by a man due to religious animosity. The man was a self described Christian, and decapitated the statue due to self confessed feelings of disgust at the presence of a statue that stood against his Christian values. The Church of Satan is admittedly a critique of Christianity, and the majority of members are self professed atheists. The Church mostly came about as a protest against Christian symbols and writings, such as the 10 Commandments, being placed in courthouses and capitol buildings. The atheists turned Satanists argued that America has, at the very least, a principle (due to the 1st Amendment), of a separation between church and state, and a misguided idea that Constitutionally a government cannot establish a state religion. This is incorrect, and is based on a letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to a congregation on the subject.
Many conservative pundits, such as Matt Walsh, and Ben Shapiro, applauded the actions of the man, and even stating that Satanism was not a legitimate religion. I find this fairly troubling, as stating that a religion is not a legitimate religion opens up a can of worms that can cause all sorts of principle issues. Christianity started out more or less a fringe cult worshipping a man who was crucified, and Judaism has existed for literal millennia as a minority religious group around the world.
The core of this issue stems from the fact that if Christians are allowed to put their religious symbolism in publicly owned spaces, anyone with any sort of religious ideals should also be allowed to do so based on principles of fairness and equal protection, specifically under the 14th Amendment. Walsh and Shapiro stating that Satanism is not a legitimate religion, and thus can be barred from having a statue in a public building right across from traditional Christian Christmas decorations such as a manger scene, only gives power to the idea that a government can determine what is or is not a legitimate religion, and bar religious practice with that analysis.
Walsh and Shapiro are stupidly giving ground to those who would use the power of government to abuse their religious rights on the same grounds they are cheering the abuse of a religion they see as a mockery psuedo-religion. Both Walsh and Shapiro argued that the Church of Satan is not a legitimate religion, and thus it does not deserve the protections that a religion such as Christianity or Judaism would enjoy. It doesn’t matter whether you believe that the Satanists actually hold their beliefs dear or not, because nobody else really cares if you hold your religious beliefs dear or not. We saw during the covid-19 pandemic, the abridgement of maltreatment of religious rights in the name of public health and safety. The US military discharged thousands of servicemembers who refused to take the vaccine on religious grounds, and denied religious accommodations for a waiver to not take the vaccine. In that instance, Walsh and Shapiro correctly argued that those servicemembers ought to have not been discharged for refusing the vaccine on religious grounds, yet now they applaud and argue for the same revocation of protections for Satanism just because it’s a religion they don’t like.
As I said in the beginning, the Church of Satan was formed as a protest against Christian symbolism in public buildings. I don’t think it’s too much to ask to not use public buildings and spaces for religious symbolism. I’m not a Satanist, but I do think that at the very least, public buildings should be neutral spaces. I would not want the government to determine what is or is not a legitimate belief to hold, and base the protections of those rights on that legitimacy. The conservatives once again build their own guillotine by arguing for something that overall could be used against them.