Ugh. I live in Iowa, Des Moines, mere miles from the incident which I am about to recount. The incident being the holiday destruction of one Baphomet statue at the Iowa state capitol building. This drew national attention, and here I’m obligated to speak up. This is because I am the only person you will ever get the sane version of this story from.
Everybody else in this story is a goober.
Spoilers: They Caught the Guy
The man who busted up the statue has, as of the very week of this writing, been identified, apprehended, and charged with a hate crime. The fellow happens to be 35-year-old Michael Cassidy of Lauderdale, Mississippi, this goober.
Who just so happens to have run for office in Mississippi, and possibly might yet still. No really, we live in a country where a guy charged with masterminding insurrection against the nation while in office as president is running for president again, the rulebook is all torn up and fit for fireplace kindling now.
I would be tempted to pour more derision upon his head were not everyone else in this story a goober too. Certainly goober Governor Kim Reynolds shares some blame; she spit out the following statement after the goobers at the Satanic Temple, tongues firmly in cheek, managed to file the right forms to get the statue erected, as they have on other occasions and capitols.
While she didn’t explicitly say “somebody come out here and maul this scary goat-man with a baseball bat,” she didn’t make it sound like removing the statue would ruin her day either. That could be taken as invitation, verily incitement. Indeed, it turns out Iowa’s code on hate crimes
729A.2 Violation of individual rights — hate crime. “Hate crime” means one of the following public offenses when committed against a person or a person’s property because of the person’s race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age, or disability, or the person’s association with a person of a certain race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age, or disability: 1. Assault in violation of individual rights under section 708.2C. 2. Violations of individual rights under section 712.9. 3. Criminal mischief in violation of individual rights under section 716.6A. 4. Trespass in violation of individual rights under section 716.8, subsections 3 and 4.
is almost specifically aimed at punishing this kind of thing. I’m pretty sure goober Kim hadn’t read this code at the time of her statement.
Anyway, despite the possibility of pardon from one hard-orange-R to another, readers may rest assured that justice of some degree is, if not served, at least warming up in the microwave.
Yes, I said the Satanic Temple are goobers too. Don’t cry tears for me that they’re trying to push back against theocracy blah blah, they do a shit job of it. Pulling clown stunts like this does no favors for Civil Rights. I wouldn’t want the Satanic Temple to be a theocracy either; they get everything as wrong as the Christians do. Before you take these modern-day Yippies too seriously, remember they sell branded hot sauce. How pious.
BUT we have to back up here first…
I’ve had a dozen conversations by now with my fellow Iowans that boil down to:
- ME: (spots religious pamphlets at cash register) Can I bring in some Baphomet pamphlets too?
- Cashier: NO! Baphomet is in league with Satan!
- ME: Um. He is? Where does it say that?
- Cashier: (throwing me out of store)
Well I’m right, dammit, and when it comes to religion, when I say there’s no such thing as an American Christian, it’s because I’m sick of arguing with goobers who think Jesus was white, blonde, American, owned a gun, and hated everybody but rich white male Republicans. These same goobers insist that Satan has red skin and pointy horns and a trident.
This is bad:
But the answer is not this:
After the jump: Your complete schooling on Baphomet:
Continue reading “Baphomet Isn’t Real Until You Make Him Real”