Michael Cassidy, a Christian who ran for Congress as a Republican, turned himself in to authorities

UPDATE: The Sentinel, the conservative “news” outlet that first reported on the vandalism, has launched a fundraiser to help Michael Cassidy pay for his legal defense.

As of this writing, they’ve already raised nearly half of their $20,000 goal.

(Follow article link to view photos/PDFs that accompany article.)

Well, that didn’t take long.

Just days before The Satanic Temple’s display in the Iowa Capitol was set to come down, a Christian vandalized it. It came after a flurry of outrage from conservatives who believe freedom of religion shouldn’t apply to religious groups they don’t personally like.

According to the right-wing media outlet The Sentinel, the culprit was Michael Cassidy, “a Christian and former military officer” who beheaded the Baphomet statue.

“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 told The Sentinel. “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.”

…

“I saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged,” Cassidy continued. “My conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.”

…

Cassidy cited 1 John 3:8 as an additional motivation for his destruction of the statue: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” He noted that “Scripture exhorts us to think and act like Jesus Christ.”

To be clear, there was nothing “anti-Christian” about the display unless you consider anything that’s not explicitly pro-Jesus anti-Christian. The Satanic display listed the Seven Fundamental Tenets, which include things like “One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason,” “If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused,” and “The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.”

More importantly, it’s irrelevant what Cassidy thinks the Founders might have wanted because our legal system has repeatedly said religious freedom applies to everyone. If Iowa lawmakers want to create a public forum for displays, they cannot discriminate on the basis of religion.

Cassidy apparently turned himself in and now faces a charge of fourth-degree criminal mischief. He faces a fine of between $315 and $1,875 and up to a year in jail.

Earlier this evening, rather than apologizing, Cassidy tweeted out a Bible verse:

The verses right before that one urge Christians to “humble yourselves” to God. Cassidy apparently doesn’t have enough faith in God to deal with the open forum in the Iowa Capitol, so he took matters into his own hands. (In 2017, another Christian criminal destroyed a Ten Commandments monument outside the Arkansas Capitol.)

Cassidy, once a Navy pilot, was previously a candidate for Congress from Mississippi. In 2022, he lost in the GOP primary. Last month, he was the Republican candidate for a seat in the Mississippi State House but lost in the general election to a Democrat.

His lawyer told The Sentinel that Cassidy was motivated by his Christian faith to “peacefully protest a display that is a direct affront to God”… which is a bizarre way to describe an act of vandalism. A peaceful protest would have been praying near the display, not destroying it. (If an atheist vandalized the Nativity scene nearby, you can bet no one would call it a peaceful protest.)

The Satanic Temple of Iowa said that their display had been “destroyed beyond repair” but took a magnanimous approach to it all, asking people to “use the 7 Tenets as a reminder for empathy, in the knowledge that justice is being pursued the correct way, through legal means.” They said the (remains of the) display would stay up through Saturday, as scheduled.

Meanwhile, conservative Christians celebrated the destruction of the display.

On X/Twitter, The Sentinel described Cassidy’s act as an “incredible story of Christian conviction and zeal.” Charlie Kirk posted that his organization would “pledge $10,000 to his legal defense fund,” while other right-wing troll accounts expressed similar pleasure. The Young Republicans of Texas called it “BASED,” while Christian evangelist and grifter Joshua Feuerstein (who’s running for State House in Texas) vowed to “personally tear… down” a similar hypothetical display in the Texas Capitol.

It’s revealing how the same people who always demand a debate prefer destruction. The MAGA “freedom” crowd can’t handle actual freedom.

All of this comes after lawmakers ranging from state representatives in Iowa to Gov. Ron DeSantis demonized the Satanic display and called for it’s removal.

As The Satanic Temple’s co-founder Lucien Greaves put it, the same people who put up their own Nativity scene, held protests and prayers near the Satanic display, and spread their message through media outlets writing about the Baphomet statue… are now playing the victim. There’s no appeasing them because the Christian majority always pretends to be persecuted. Even as a Christian literally destroys someone else’s property.

The question now is what Iowa lawmakers plan to do in response. Will they maintain the open forum in the Capitol? Will they add extra security to prevent something like this from happening again? Will they choose to close the forum to holiday displays entirely?

The one thing they cannot do is allow a Christian display to remain up while shutting out everybody else—which is exactly what the bigots and vandals want.