A long anticipated and highly controversial satanic statue has been unveiled in Detroit on Saturday night.
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The location of the unveiling was kept secret and given via email to ticket holders hours before the event.
This 2014 photo provided by The Satanic Temple shows a bronze Baphomet, which depicts Satan as a goat-headed figure surrounded by two children. In a televised interview with Satanic Temple of Detroit director Jex Blackmore (which unsurprisingly devolved into an incoherent mess) he argued against the notion of the statue being able to create a dialogue, saying that “statues don’t talk”. The event will serve as a call-to-arms from which we’ll kick off our largest fight to date in the name of individual rights to free exercise against self-serving theocrats. “The mission of The Satanic Temple is to encourage benevolence and empathy among all people”, the group’s website states.
This wasn’t enough though for 100 Christian protesters who tried to block the reveal, calling the showing disrespectful to many different religions which have Satan as the embodiment of all evil and malice. Minister Todd Sanders, of Strictly Biblical Bible Teaching Ministries in Detroit, says this is a great opportunity for the church. “I don’t think it’s anything we should be afraid of at all, we don’t need to cower in fear – we have the truth on our side as Christians”.
The group unsuccessfully applied to have the statue placed near a monument to the 10 Commandments installed on the Oklahoma State Capitol grounds in 2012.
Detroit was ultimately selected for the unveiling because The Satanic Temple in the city has a “strong congregation”, with more than 200 registered members.
“According to the Satanic Temple, the 1-ton, almost 9-foot-tall bronze idol will only be unveiled in Detroit”.
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The statue may stand outside Arkansas’ Statehouse in Little Rock where a Ten Commandments monument is planned to be built.
