It's become a holiday tradition, especially in the red states. Every year, in response to overtly Christian displays put up in government buildings, the Satanic Temple petitions to set up a display honoring Lucifer in state capitols. They usually succeed. 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, Satanists prove 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.
It's hardened into a ritual because both sides get something out of it. The fundamentalists get a chance to freak out and use this as evidence for their lurid conspiracy theories claiming demonic forces are out to get them. The Satanists and their fans get a chance to remind everyone that Republicans are hypocrites who never really believed all that "free speech" talk. This year, the annual rite is playing out in Iowa, where the Satanists have antagonized the Christians with a goat's head wreath in the Des Moines capitol building.
The story has more national resonance than usual, however. It's happening in the shadow cast by a much darker, more dangerous bad faith debate over free speech: The fight over alleged anti-semitism on campus.
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In their twin quest to divide-and-conquer the left and deflect from Donald Trump's responsibility for unleashing a torrent of bigotry across the U.S., House Republicans decided to host one of their many disingenuous spectacles disguised as "hearings" last week. Three presidents of elite universities — Harvard, M.I.T, and the University of Pennsylvania — were summoned to discuss anti-semitism on campus in the wake of Israel's war on Gaza. In a clip that went viral, these three were unable to state plainly under questioning from Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., that students would be expelled if they called for genocide of Jews.
The trick worked as intended, causing the anti-MAGA coalition to tear at each other with arguments over whether these presidents were in the right on free speech grounds, whether the threat of anti-semitism from campus is overblown, and why the voices of teenaged college students are treated as emblematic of the entire left. As Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times wrote, "you can see the trap Stefanik laid."
But while people get into often-incomprehensible arguments over the finer points of defining "genocide" and "free speech," what is getting lost is the most important issue: Republicans are a bunch of lying hypocrites. It's this message the Satanic Temple is trying to remind us all of with their holiday display. The MAGA right has been wailing for years about the alleged threats to free speech from hazily defined social pressures like "wokeness" and "cancel culture," but when it comes to opinions they don't like, they don't hesitate to call for the blunt force of censorship.
As many people pointed out, Republicans have defended genocidal and violent rhetoric for years now under the guise of "free speech." Trump's unsubtle calls for violence against his perceived enemies have led to an attempted murder of the husband of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D.-Calif., threats against government employees and even private citizens, and, of course, the insurrection of January 6, 2021. Dehumanizing rhetoric against Black Lives Matter protesters and "great replacement" theory have led to mass murder, shootings, and conservatives crashing cars into protests. But when liberals call for social media companies to curb the ugly rhetoric using their legal powers to self-regulate, a chorus of right wing whining about "cancel culture" erupts. We do not need to litigate how real the threat of campus anti-semitism is, in order to see how Republians use tensions over hate speech and the First Amendment to advance their "free speech for me, but not for thee" agenda
The Satanic altar at Iowa's state capitol showcases the same GOP bad faith, but at least with some levity. As atheists and other religious minorities have long argued, the reason Republicans want nativity scenes and other such religious symbols up on government grounds is obvious: To signal that the U.S. is a Christian nation, not a secular one. But Republicans can't admit that out loud, so instead they play word games with concepts like "free speech" and "freedom of religion."
The reaction to the Satanic altar in Iowa shows the emptiness of GOP rhetoric about "free speech." State Rep. Brad Sherman is on the warpath, insisting it's "a tortured and twisted interpretation of law that affords Satan, who is universally understood to be the enemy of God, religious expression equal to God in an institution of government that depends upon God for continued blessings."
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To be fair, other Republican leaders in the state understand the law and that if they want to keep using government property for Christian proselytizing, they have to tolerate the presence of other religious expression, including that which is Satanic. But their MAGA-drunk constituents clearly do not agree. When state Rep. Jon Dunwell released a statement explaining that the state must "either allow all displays or none," and advising the "primary response required is prayer" instead of censorship, he was raked over the coals by his fellow Republicans in mentions.
"To give quarter to the enemies of God is pathetic and contemptible," complained one woman. "God placed you in a position of authority for such a time as this," griped a man. Others quoted Bible verses at him that appear to call for literal murder of unbelievers or insisted that a true Christian believes the Bible trumps the constitution. Same thing happened across social media. Wherever the story about the Satanic altar appeared, the comments are completely dominated by Republican voters wailing about how the government needs to censor this, that the purpose of government is to uphold Christianity, and that the Founding Fathers supposedly agreed with them.
Some are explicitly using this to call for Christian nationalism:
This kind of thing is why it's so gross to see Republicans cynically exploit fears of anti-semitism to promote their culture war narratives about "campus leftism" and "political correctness." The Satanic Temple's trolling exposes the bare truth, which is the GOP is rapidly becoming a Christian nationalist party full of people who want to find a way to use government power to marginalize and silence non-Christians, or who are even those who are just critical of conservative Christianity. Right now, feigned concern for Jewish people gives cover to this "free speech for me, censorship for thee" mentality. But, one would be a fool to see all this outrage over the Satanic Temple's little joke and not conclude that these folks aren't going to be satisfied with only kicking out Satanists. This is about limiting who gets rights to free speech and religious liberty to conservative Christians.
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