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The Satanic Temple holiday display restored after being destroyed — again
The Satanic Temple was allowed to participate in the display, which also includes a Nativity scene, for the first time this year.
The Satanic Temple has had to restore its holiday display in front of the State House in Concord, N.H., a second time after an additional bout of vandalism.
TST Display
The Satanic Temple, based in Salem, Mass., is a religious organization that seeks to “encourage benevolence and empathy among all people, reject tyrannical authority, advocate practical common sense, oppose injustice, and undertake noble pursuits,” according to its website. For the first time this year, Concord, N.H., allowed the temple, also known as TST, to include a monument near the city’s nativity scene outside the State House.
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Its display included a statue of Baphomet, a deity and occult symbol with yellow eyes, holding an “apple of knowledge in one hand and a bouquet of purple lilacs, New Hampshire’s state flower, offered as a gesture of camaraderie, in the other,” according to a release shared by TST. There was a granite table inscribed with TST’s “Seven Fundamental Tenets” at its feet. After being put up Dec. 7, it was knocked over and damaged “one hour after its unveiling,” and three days later, it was vandalized again and “damaged beyond repair.”
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“The Baphomet was broken, and the tablet was illegible and missing pieces,” TST wrote in a statement.
Working with a collective of local artists, TST representatives repaired the display and reinstalled it Dec. 16. The next night, it was vandalized again, leading TST to have to restore it a second time.
State Rep. Ellen Read, a Democrat from Newmarket who invited TST to be part of the holiday displays at the State House, said she was “not surprised” about the recent or previous vandalisms.
“Once again, the people who are supposedly doing this in the name of Christianity, a religion that professes faith and love and peace,” Read said. “Their holiday season is about love, peace, and goodwill to others, and in the middle of that, they’re reacting violently without caring about other people’s opinions.”
Concord only begrudgingly accepted Read’s push to allow TST to partake in the holiday display in the first place. In a Facebook post, it noted that The Satanic Temple has brought lawsuits under the First Amendment in cases when it was excluded from holiday displays, saying it was allowing The Satanic Temple members to partake in Concord’s display “to avoid litigation.”
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Lucien Greaves, co-founder of and spokesperson for The Satanic Temple, said the protections of the First Amendment “deserve our respect and require rigorous preservation.”
“I think the thing that disturbs me most about this whole affair is how a majority of the press seems to frame our claim for equal rights, our claim to equal access in a public forum, as somehow novel, as though it is unclear whether the First Amendment really applies to us,” Greaves wrote in an email to Boston.com.
A similar fight is occurring in Minnesota, where members of The Satanic Temple contributed to the holiday display at the State House in St. Paul. Greaves said Concord, N.H., Mayor Byron Champlin and other public officials should act “responsible.”
“For…Champlin to think it [is] his place to suggest the city should have broken with the Constitutional tradition of government viewpoint neutrality, giving his office expansive rights over basic liberties we often take for granted and assume immune from government encroachment calls into question his professional competence,” Greaves wrote.
Champlin did not respond to a request for comment.
The Concord Police Department detained a suspect last week, according to the Concord Monitor. Concord Police did not respond to a Boston.com request for comment.
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