He has been charged with 4th-degree criminal mischief.<\/p>\n
The man who destroyed a Satanic\u00a0holiday display in the Iowa State Capitol on Thursday has been arrested and charged, police said.<\/p>\n
Michael Cassidy, 35, was arrested after allegedly beheading a Baphomet statue put up last week by the Satanic Temple of Iowa, the Iowa State Police\u00a0confirmed<\/a>\u00a0to Fox News.<\/p>\n He has been charged with 4th-degree criminal mischief.<\/p>\n Cassidy, a former Navy pilot who now works as a flight instructor and was previously a Mississippi congressional candidate,\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0to The Republic Sentinel\u00a0why he decided to destroy the Satanic display.<\/p>\n \u201cI saw this blasphemous statue and was outraged,\u201d Cassidy told the outlet. \u201cMy conscience is held captive to the word of God, not to bureaucratic decree. And so I acted.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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,\u201d Cassidy added.\u00a0\u201cAnti-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.\u201d<\/p>\n After being charged, Cassidy posted a Bible verse to social media on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n \u201c1 Peter 5:8 KJV Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour,\u201d Cassidy posted on X.<\/p>\n The Satanic Temple of Iowa\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0in a Facebook post that the statue was \u201cdestroyed beyond repair\u201d but that they will continue their holiday display for the next few days.<\/p>\n \u201cWe ask that for safety, visitors travel together and use the 7 Tenets as a reminder for empathy, in the knowledge that justice is being pursued the correct way, through legal means,\u201d the group wrote. \u201cHappy Holidays! Hail Satan!\u201d<\/p>\n The Satanic Temple of Iowa\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0it obtained permission from the state for the display, which was\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0set up near displays of the Nativity on the first floor of the Iowa Capitol. The display showed the idol Baphomet holding a pentacle surrounded by candles.<\/p>\n Governor Kim Reynolds (R-IA) encouraged residents to counter the \u201cobjectionable\u201d display with more speech.<\/p>\n \u201cLike many Iowans, I find the Satanic Temple\u2019s display in the Capitol absolutely objectionable. In a free society, the best response to objectionable speech is more speech, and I encourage all those of faith to join me today in praying over the Capitol and recognizing the nativity scene that will be on display \u2013 the true reason for the season,\u201d Reynolds\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0Tuesday in a statement.<\/p>\n Read more at: dailywire.com<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" He has been charged with 4th-degree criminal mischief. The man who destroyed a Satanic\u00a0holiday display in the Iowa State Capitol on Thursday has been arrested and charged, police said. Michael Cassidy, 35, was arrested after allegedly beheading a Baphomet statue put up last week by the Satanic Temple of Iowa, the Iowa State Police\u00a0confirmed\u00a0to Fox … Continue reading Man Charged For Beheading Satanic Display In Iowa State Capitol<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/watching-300x100-300x100-1.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-6qb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24687"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24688,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24687\/revisions\/24688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}