For many Americans, the way that religion looms large over every public conversation and in every political discourse may seem normal, and almost invisible. But as someone who grew up elsewhere, I was shocked by its obvious influence when I lived in an arguably liberal bastion of a city, Los Angeles. Growing up in Canada, I had almost never been asked about my religion, what church I attended, whether I was a Satanist or not – I didn’t even know I looked like a Satanist until I moved to LA. I had heard the phrase “God Bless America,” but from the Canadian side that just seemed ironic. To give you an idea of the different role religion plays in Canadian politics, when Prime Minister Stephen Harper tried the same “God Bless” shit up here in speeches, it made the news and made him a target of fairly wide-spread ridicule and derision in the under-65 population. In America, if you don’t say it at the end of a speech, you’ve FUCKED UP. You can’t be president if you aren’t pandering to one Christian sect or another – one of the mandatory qualities of a president (besides a penis) is the belief in aliens and zombies. So it’s no wonder I’m partial to the scare tactics The Satanic Temple uses to troll Christians and their political bullhorns…
This doc follows The Satanic Temple’s donation of a Baphomet statue to be erected on Arkansas State Capital lawn, in protest of the 10 Commandments monument, which TST claims violates freedom of religion and the separation of church and state. Hearing the monument’s main supporter, Senator Jason Rapert, describe it, apparently the 10 Commandments monument has nothing to do with religion – it’s just a coincidence that Christians like it so much. He claims that the reason it was chosen to represent the state is because it is one of the first recorded codes of law. If that’s true, why not choose one of the many codex found in Mesopotamia that preceded the Law of Moses by 2,000 years? Using similar shock tactics, the TST was successful in 2015 in getting a similar 10 Commandments monument removed from the Oklahoma State Capitol building. Lucien Greaves, the TST’s leader, describes the driving reason for their quest to protect First Amendment rights: “the rise of theocratic efforts within American politics has been at play for generations now, but it’s really coming to a head…with the election of Donald Trump and the rise of evangelical nationalism.” With neo-nazis and KKK leaders threatening to crash the TST Arkansas rally, he might have a point there. If you enjoy Christians freaking out about Satan coming to Arkansas in the flesh, then watch this documentary below…
