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BEAUTIFUL PLAIN, Minnesota – The Satanic Temple, based in Massachusetts, is suing a Minnesota city for withdrawing authorization from a satanic monument two years ago, when local government officials got entangled in a debate over religious symbols in public places.
Malcolm Jarry, co-founder of the Satanic Temple, said Saturday at the Star Tribune that people have the right to protest against the proposed monument.
"But the outcome of the demonstration should not deprive others of their civil rights," he said.
The difficult situation in which the city of Belle Plaine is located began in 2017 when the authorities decided to allow a steel silhouette depicting a soldier praying over a grave marked with a cross in a park of the Veterans Memorial. The satanic temple wanted to have its own monument in the park, in a district designated by the city as "public forum", following complaints that the monument of the soldiers would violate the separation of the church and the church. ;State. Officials completely closed the public forum area when complaints followed about the proposed satanic monument.
"I knew this would be a problem," said Belle Plaine Councilor Paul Chard, referring to the initial acceptance by the city of the soldiers' monument. "The pot was stirred fairly quickly."
The monument proposed by the satanic temple, based in Salem, Massachusetts, is a 584-millimeter (23-inch) black cube engraved with inverted pentagrams. He would be overcome with a returned helmet.
At the time, it was the first satanic monument on public property in the United States. The Belle Plaine City Council initially granted the permit, but withdrew it and ordered the withdrawal of the soldier's monument during the closure of the public forum.
"As you well know, you can not decide to remove the floor just because rowdy people do not like it," said Bruce Fein, a lawyer representing the temple in Washington, DC.
Since the protests in Belle Plaine, the satanic temple has then placed a statue representing a goat-headed creature at the Arkansas Capitol to call for the removal of the monument to the Ten Commandments.
The satanic temple has 18 chapters throughout the country. The organization says it advocates a tighter separation from church and state and that it does not believe in supernatural beings, including Satan.
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