Happy holidays and hellfire from the Satanic Temple to you: The beleaguered religious group got approval to erect a holiday display in the rotunda of Florida’s capitol, just a year after it was rejected for being “grossly offensive.”
It’s certainly not the first non-Christian group to put up a holiday decoration, and Hemant Mehta reports that last year, the rotunda hosted atheist groups and even the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The Satanic Temple is expected to display an angel falling into hellfire, drawn — like many of the other exhibits — from a biblical verse. “How you are fallen from heaven, Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!” reads Isaiah 14:12.
So why the change? Mehta reached out to Satanic Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves, who pointed out that the approved display was rejected only last year. “The only difference, it seems, is that this time around we came flanked with a cadre of lawyers,” Greaves wrote. “In any case, we appreciate the opportunity to wish a happy holiday season to all people, regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof.”
Ah, the threat of litigation. As American as religious freedom and apple pie.
