(LifeSiteNews) — Weighing in on Iowa’s display of a satanic statue in its state capitol, presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida pointed out that the only reason the Satanic Temple is able to legally defend the display on the basis of “religious freedom” is that the IRS granted the group religious status in 2019.
DeSantis noted that this was under President Donald Trump’s watch and said he thought the decision was wrong. He argued that the Satanic Temple would not have fallen under what the Founding Fathers of America would have included within religion and its legal protections.
The comments came in a CNN town hall in answer to a question about the situation.
“So it’s interesting,” DeSantis said. “I heard this and then I was like, well, how did it get there? Is that even a religion? And lo and behold, the Trump administration gave them approval to be under the IRS as a religion. So that gave them the legal ability to potentially do it.”
“So I don’t know what the legislature, how they analyzed it, but it very well may be because of that ruling under Donald Trump that they may have had a legal leg to stand on. My view would be that that’s not a religion that the Founding Fathers were trying to create. But I do think that IRS ruling, I was really surprised to see that they did that.”
DeSantis acknowledged that the IRS status did not necessarily mean the government supports the Satanic Temple. However, he insisted, the federal government “recognized it as a religion.”
“I don’t think that was the right decision… That’s wrong,” he declared.
In similar comments on X, formerly Twitter, DeSantis said he would contribute to the legal defense of former Navy pilot Michael Cassidy, who tore down and decapitated the offensive statue on December 14, indignant that an image of Baphomet, a demonic idol, had been allowed in Iowa’s capitol.
“Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a ‘religion’ by the federal government,” DeSantis wrote. “I’ll chip in to contribute to this veteran’s legal defense fund. Good prevails over evil – that’s the American spirit.”
Satan has no place in our society and should not be recognized as a “religion” by the federal government. I’ll chip in to contribute to this veteran’s legal defense fund.
Good prevails over evil — that’s the American spirit. https://t.co/p1vmTcl8c9
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) December 15, 2023
In defense of his action, Cassidy challenged the claim that the display was protected by the First Amendment because the Satanic Temple is a “religion.”
“The world may tell Christians to submissively accept the legitimization of Satan, but none of the founders would have considered government sanction of Satanic altars inside Capitol buildings as protected by the First Amendment,” Cassidy said. “Anti-Christian values have steadily been mainstreamed more and more in recent decades, and Christians have largely acted like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot of water.”
READ: Satanic idol at Iowa state Capitol destroyed by Christian military veteran
LifeSiteNews journalist Jonathan Van Maren noted that the Satanic Temple did indeed receive tax exempt status from the IRS in 2019 along with formal government recognition as a “house of worship.”
Led by Lucien Greaves, the Satanist leadership claims not to believe in anything at all, using Satanism to harass American Christians and to use religious liberty protections to push for their far-left agenda. The Satanic Temple, however, also promotes satanic rituals.
Van Maren noted that in 2020, the Satanic Temple attempted to have abortion recognized as a demonic “sacrament” under religious freedom laws, with Greaves previously declaring abortion a “religious ritual,” a claim that resurfaced after Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022.
READ: Iowa’s Satanic statue debacle reminds us that the Constitution is meaningless without Christianity
Iowa Rep. Brad Sherman argued in a December 8 public letter that Gov. Kim Reynolds should order the removal of the satanic exhibit because it offends God and runs afoul of the Iowa state constitution.
Citing the preamble of the state constitution that recognizes one God (Supreme Being) from Whom blessings derive and upon Whom the people depend, Sherman said,
It is a tortured and twisted interpretation of law that affords Satan, who is universally understood to be the enemy of God, religious expression equal to God in an institution of government that depends upon God for continued blessings. Such a legal view not only violates the very foundation of our State Constitution, but it offends the God upon whom we depend and undermines our wellbeing.
If we claim to believe in the One Supreme Being, the God of all creation, we cannot claim an exemption from obedience to Him in things relating to civil government. In fact, if we claim Him as our God, then we as legislators and government officials are His ministers. As such we must submit to Him in government as much as any other area of life. Either He is God or He is not.
For those who wish to worship Satan, they are free to do so on their private property. But to allow satanic expression in the State Capitol and other public property is to surrender to Satan’s demands for equality with God which was his original sin: “I will be like the Most High” (see Isaiah 14:14).
If we want the blessings of God upon our state, we must demonstrate by our laws and actions that we are indeed depending upon Him and that we are opposed to Satan.
Sherman said the satanic exhibit should be taken down and that legislation should be advanced to ban future satanic displays and permit the establishment of Ten Commandments displays at state-run institutions, including the Capitol and public schools.
DeSantis, Van Maren, and Sherman are right. Satanism and the Satanic Temple – whether atheistic or actually demonic in nature – run afoul of what the Founding Fathers of the United States considered to be religion and therefore protected by the First Amendment.
A glance at just two official documents from the time of the founding of the nation make clear that religion means the public worship and service of the One True God Who created the world, sustains it by His providence, rules it with His wisdom, and blesses it with His mercy.
In the First National Thanksgiving Proclamation, the Continental Congress of the United States, in 1777, with the country still engaged in the war for independence, not only enjoined Americans to publicly offer acts of thanks to almighty God, but exhorted all to “consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor,” to make “the penitent confession of their manifold sins,” and to offer “their humble and earnest supplication that it may please GOD through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance, that it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively.”
The Continental Congress saw fit not only to enjoin all to ask blessings from God for the whole nation, but invoked the “merits of Jesus Christ” for the forgiveness of sins and expressed the hope that religion would prosper for the furthering “of that Kingdom, which consisteth ‘in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.’”
The religion upon which the nation was founded was clearly Christianity. The Continental Congress not only enjoined the nation to pay homage and thanks to almighty God, but makes clear in its official documents that it believes in the Blessed Trinity, the Incarnation, and Redemption from sin though Jesus Christ.
The proclamation reads:
It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these UNITED STATES to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth Day of December next, for SOLEMN THANKSGIVING and PRAISE:
That at one Time and with one Voice, the good People may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincere Acknowledgments and Offerings, they may join the penitent Confession of their manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and earnest Supplication that it may please GOD through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance;
That it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole:
To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty GOD, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, INDEPENDENCE and PEACE:
That it may please him, to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land may yield its Increase:
To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth “in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.
The Continental Congress of 1777 clearly saw the success and blessing of founding the new nation as well as its future prosperity and growth as inclusive of the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ and dependent upon public prayers of thanksgiving, supplication, contrition, and praise of God. Neither atheism nor Satanism could possibly find any place in the notion of religion as expressed by the Congress at the founding of the United States.
In like manner, President George Washington, in 1789, in the first Presidential Thanksgiving Proclamation, enjoined Americans to offer public acts of thanksgiving for the “signal favors of Almighty God,” devoting themselves “to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”
Notably, Washington enumerates among a nation’s duties to God: “acknowledgement,” “obedience,” “gratitude,” and supplication. He names these not as private duties of private citizens but as public duties of the nation as a whole, in fulfillment of which he as president, at the official request of Congress, was declaring a national day of public thanksgiving and prayer.
Were any man at that time to have suggested that atheism or Satanism could lay claim to the same legal status and protections as the worship and service of God, as understood and expressed by the official proclamations of the U.S. Congress and president, that man would have been roundly and rightly mocked.
To make this more than abundantly clear, the full text of Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation is offered below. It eloquently speaks for itself.
Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.
Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted–for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed—to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us—and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.