Back in December, Michael Cassidy was a man on a mission in Iowa. The failed GOP state legislature candidate went to Des Moines and encountered a “holiday” display in the form of an altar put up by the Satanic Temple. Cassidy described himself as being offended and filled with righteous indignation. He proceeded to rip the head off of a statue of the demon Baphomet. There’s no question about who did it because he later went on Fox News and basically bragged about it. After originally being charged with a misdemeanor, prosecutors have now upgraded the charges, hitting Cassidy with a felony hate crime count for violating the individual religious rights of the Satanic Temple. Who had this on their 2024 bingo card? (NBC News)

A man who attacked and beheaded a permitted statue put up by the Satanic Temple at Iowa’s Capitol in December has been charged with a felony under the state’s hate crime statutes, the prosecutor’s office said this week.

Michael Cassidy, who was an unsuccessful Republican candidate for Mississippi’s state House of Representatives, is charged with third-degree criminal mischief in violation of individual rights, the Polk County Attorney’s Office said Tuesday.

“Evidence shows the defendant made statements to law enforcement and the public indicating he destroyed the property because of the victim’s religion,” the prosecutor’s office said.

While the entire situation seems ridiculous, I get what the prosecutors are saying, at least to a degree. If we’re going to have religious freedom in this country as the Constitution demands, it has to be freedom for all religions. Never mind that the Satanic Temple’s members don’t even believe that Satan exists or put any stock in paranormal rituals. They mostly exist to stage protests and cause trouble, demanding the rights of a religious group while not actually practicing a religion. Yet we’re all expected to go along with their game.

Ripping the head off of a demonic statue is still a case of property damage at a minimum. As such, the legal system probably can’t ignore someone doing this, particularly when that person has aspirations to become an elected legislative official. But seriously? A federal hate crime? That seems like a bit much considering the circumstances.

It’s also worth noting how quickly officials seem to be rushing to the defense of the Satanic Temple when even more abhorrent attacks are carried out on legitimate religious institutions and iconography on a regular basis, with few culprits facing similar consequences. Just last year in New York City there were a series of attacks on statues of the Virgin Mary. The statues were either hit with graffiti. knocked over, or destroyed. In most cases, they never identified the suspects. In the one case where they did catch somebody, the act was described as a hate crime but he was charged with a misdemeanor for criminal mischief.

In November, the statue of the Blessed Virgin at a Murray Hill Catholic Church in New York was attacked. The vandal caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the iconic figure that had stood there for more than 100 years. The attacker was never identified and the church had to simply move forward with repairs and go about their business.

Everything seems to change when someone goes after the Satanic Temple, however. Then it’s suddenly a constitutional crisis and the sinner must be held to account. That probably says a lot more about our society as a whole than it does about Michael Cassidy or Mortimer Adramelech (the “minister” of the Satanic Temple in Iowa). Despite the claims of so-called progressives who take to the streets, we tend to rush to the defense of smaller, outside groups while we don’t expend nearly as much energy protecting the rights of larger, more established populations and institutions. The one exception to that rule comes in the form of the Jews, who are a very small minority but still receive outsized attacks and abuse while having far too few defenders. It’s a sad state of affairs all the way around.