New York-based Satanic Temple, whose website is shown here, says if there's a Ten Commendmants monument at Oklahoma's state Capitol, there should be one for Satan too. (Satanic Temple)
Apparently the Republican party`s bible thumpting God fearing message has been heard after all of their Ten-Commendmants monument erectings in courthouse lawns and public lands have successfully passed legal muster in Republican strong holds.
Roy Stewart Moore is an American jurist and Republican politician and the current Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. He is noted for his prior refusal, in 2003, as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, to remove a monument of the Ten Commendmants from the Alabama Judicial Building despite orders to do so from a federal judge.
We all recall that On November 13, 2003, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary unanimously removed Moore from his post as Chief Justice. He was re-installed in office in January, 2013.
In the years preceding his first election to the state Supreme Court, Moore had successfully resisted previous attempts to have a display of the Ten Commandments removed from the courtroom. The controversy around Moore generated national attention.
The proposal from the New York-based Satanic Temple comes after Oklahoma conservatives erected a monument to the Ten Commandments on the statehouse lawn. In 2009, the Republican-controlled Oklahoma Legislature authorized the privately funded Ten Commendmants monument to be placed near the Capitol steps.
In so doing, the Legislature apparently opened the door to other religious groups, including satanists, to privately fund their own monuments.
This is what the legal community calls a "backfire," Christian news outlet
Relevant wrote .
Gregory Wayne "Greg" Abbott is the 50th Attorney General of Texas, and is the second Republican since Reconstruction to serve in that role.
He is noted outside the state of Texas for successfully advocating the ability of the state of Texas to display the Ten Commandments in front of the state Capitol in Austin in a 2005 United States Supreme Court case known as Van Orden v. Perry. He is a member of the Republican Party.
"We believe that all monuments should be in good taste and consistent with community standards," Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the Satanic Temple, wrote in a letter to state officials. "Our proposed monument, as an homage to the historic/literary Satan, will certainly abide by these guidelines."
Greaves credits Oklahoma state Rep. Mike Ritze, a Republican, with propelling the satanic movement into the limelight by helping to clear the path for the Ten Commandments monument that his family also helped to fund.
Where Greaves notes only that Oklahoma state Rep. Mike Ritze, a Republican, with propelling the Satanic movement it must be noted that Alabama, and Texas play into this movement in which a Satanic Temple is being touted for our children to worship. Obviously, as the Ten-commandments clearly intends. Thou shall not lie.
So how many other religious displays must the Republican bible thumpting party be able to erect in front of courthouses and public land in order to allow other religious believers the same right? What else can we legally teach our children about what they should believe?
“He’s helping a satanic agenda grow more than any of us possibly could,” Greaves told the Associated Press, adding, “You don’t walk around and see too many satanic temples around, but when you open the door to public spaces for us, that’s when you’re going to see us.”
The proposed satanic monument could include a pentagram and an interactive display for children. If approved, the monument would cost about $20,000.
Brady Henderson, legal director for ACLU Oklahoma, told AP that if state officials want to allow one type of religious expression, they must allow for others.
"If the Ten Commandments, with its overtly Christian message, is allowed to stay at the Capitol, the Satanic Temple's proposed monument cannot be rejected because of its different religious viewpoint,” Henderson said, adding that a better solution might be to ban any religious monuments from appearing on state property.