Minnesota Town Gets Nation’s First Public Satanic Temple Monument

The next time you are traveling on Highway 169 on the way to Minneapolis and you happen to make a stop in Belle Plaine, you might see something unusual in one of their parks.

According to the Washington Post the Satanic Temple announced that there will be a Satanic monument at the Belle Plaine Veterans Memorial Park. The monument is a black cube holding an upturned helmet, its sides adorned with upside-down pentagrams.

Apparently, this all started last summer when someone put up "a metal silhouette of an infantryman kneeling before a cross." A resident objected, calling it a religious symbol that violates the principle of the separation of church and state and the Religion Foundation threatened to sue.

According to the Washington Post article, this isn't the first time the organization has pushed boundaries:

It is not the first such effort from the Satanic Temple, a provocative organization that often pushes the boundaries on free speech and religious liberties to prove a point about religion in public spaces; last year, it started its “After School Satan” clubs as a way of challenging Christian evangelical groups that sponsor after-school religious programming. But this is the first time that the group has succeeded in having a monument placed on public land, said Lucien Greaves, spokesman for the organization, which is based in Salem, Mass.

The Satanic Temple says that the monument is to honor those veterans who have fallen. The monument is set to be on display within a couple of months.

Lucien Greaves, a spokesman for the Satanic Temple is quick to point out that his organization is not about worshipping the devil.

Rather, he said, it is a “nontheistic religious organization” devoted to art, free speech and individuality, whose values “are no less deeply held” than those professing a belief in God.

Source: Washington Post

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