Beat the Devil out of Arkansas

Our View

Beat the Devil out of Arkansas

We all hear the hoot-and-hollering when outsiders come to our state trying to manipulate the way we do things, so why aren’t we hearing the same public uproar over a New York-based Satanic Temple pushing to put its disgusting Baphomet statue next to the Ten Commandments on the northwest side of the grounds at West 3rd Street and State Capitol Road?

After all, aren’t most of us Arkansans proud to be called Christians and are raised in our Christian faith to detest this deceiver who leads humanity astray?

So, just what exactly does Baphomet mean? Well, there are several definitions but we’ll simply say it is a synonym for the symbol primarily seen as the symbol for the Church of Satan, created by Anton Szandor Lavery, in 1966, which features Hebrew letters that spell “Ivytn” or leviathan, which is a seaserpent creature associated with Satan, the dual god of Christianity. Basically, Baphomet is used as an idol in Satanism, and is very often confused with the Christian antagonist, Satan.

As it stands, lawmakers are going over plans for an 8 1/-foot, 3,000- pound statue of this horned figure with the head of a goat. This all came about when this New York based Satanic Temple bunch found out that our lawmakers passed a bill in 2015 that allows a 6,000-pound monument of the Ten Commandments be installed on Capitol grounds.

The Satanic Temple has argued that if the Ten Commandments statue is displayed on Capitol Grounds, then its devil statue has every right to be displayed there also.

Lucien Greaves, co-founder of this Satanic Temple, says the government has no place in dictating what is an appropriate religion and what is not.

Oh, but this situation gets even better. So seems the Saline Atheist & Skeptic Society is also getting on the act by wanting to build a brick wall to be constructed in front of the Baphomet statue and the Ten Commandments monument.

We do have to mention there has been some protesters, including members of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, a national Catholic group.

Opponents are hoping that members of the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission will deny the permit but predictions are that if that were to happen the state chapter of the liberal American Civil Liberties Union and the Society of Freethinkers will file suit.

From a legal prospective the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that the Ten Commandments displays in Kentucky courthouses were installed with religious motivations and violated the law. But, the same day, the high court ruled that a Ten Commandments statue at the Texas state Capitol could remain standing because it conveyed social and historic meaning. Then, just last year the Oklahoma high court ruled that a Ten Commandments statue installed at the state Capitol violated the state constitution and had to be removed.

As we’ve said before regarding this issue, there comes a point when being “politically correct” simply goes entirely too far to the left and in this particular instance having a statue that represents the devil has absolutely no place on our state capitol grounds.