Barely 24 hours after the secular Satanic Temple's fallen angel display went up at the state capitol building rotunda in Tallahassee, some lady has already tried to deface it.
Details are scant on why she did it, but the display's unidentified assailant was taken into police custody.
Lucien Greaves, a cofounder and spokesman for the Satanic Temple, which is based in New York, said some group members residing in Tallahassee got wind of the vandalism and immediately went to assess the damage. The piece wasn't damaged beyond repair, and they were able to fix it, said Greaves, except for one part.
"[T]he angel in the diorama, previously suspended above the flames by string, is now fully fallen," Greaves wrote in an email.
He said he thinks the vandalism took place to express misunderstanding and intolerance of the group.
While pundits try to paint the group as trying to take down Christianity, the Satanic Temple is actually a secular group trying to promote tolerance and religious freedom. If anyone had bothered to read up on the group and its mission, he said, that would have been clear.
But obviously not many have.
"Approval of our holiday display — a diorama depicting a fallen angel with a banner overhead bearing the message, ‘Happy Holidays From The Satanic Temple’ — was met with unease, controversy, and anger among certain pundits and commentators," Greaves said. "However, The Satanic Temple was clear from the start that our display was not designed to insult."
This article appears in Dec 25-31, 2014.
