Police are investigating the destruction of a demonic statue after it was erected near a Nativity scene 48 hours earlier outside the New Hampshire State House in Concord. Last weekend, the Satanic Temple unveiled a statue of the demon Baphomet at the New Hampshire State House as part of their annual tradition of erecting Satanic displays near Nativity scenes outside government property. A livestream of the ceremony also aired on Facebook.

The black-clad statue of Baphomet, which was found broken in half Monday night, had glowing eyes while holding a bouquet of purple lilacs in its right hand, symbolizing New Hampshire's state flower. It was also decorated with a purple stole imprinted with the inverted pentagram, goat's head of the TST logo, and two inverted crosses.

Meanwhile, the base of the statue included a tablet listing the seven tenets of The Satanic Temple and a black and white satanic flag on its left side, The Christian Post reports.

During the livestream, Orpheus Gaur, a minister of TST's New Hampshire and Vermont congregation, noted that the apple in the figure's left hand symbolized "our quest for knowledge, defiance in the face of arbitrary authority and our commitment to self-determination."

Speaking with the NH Journal, Concord Deputy Police Chief John Thomas explained that he can rule out at least one possible suspect amid the ongoing investigation.

"Santa wouldn't do this," Thomas said. "Santa loves everybody."

According to the Friendly Atheist, a Substack maintained by atheist Hemant Mehta, State Rep. Ellen Read (D-Newmarket), who organized the Satanic display, claimed that Christian symbols were left at the scene.

As reported by New Hampshire Radio, someone left a Santa hat, a cross, and a Christmas ornament on the statue.

Read, an agnostic who previously introduced legislation to strip God from the state oath of office and to ban circumcision from state Medicaid coverage, seemed to be emotional as she was picking up the pieces of the statue and placing them in her car, according to photos published by NH Journal.

Claiming that religious people are responsible for the vandalism, Read lamented that whoever destroyed the statue "could not tolerate a simple expression of beliefs by a group that doesn't believe as they do."

Last week, the City of Concord explained that they approved the permit for the statue to "avoid litigation."

On the other hand, Democrat Mayor Byron Champlin expressed dismay that the display was put up to begin with.

"My preference was to deny the permit and accept the risk of the threatened lawsuit," he said. "I oppose the permit because I believe the request was made not in the interest of promoting religious equity but in order to drive an anti-religious agenda."

TST co-founder Lucien Greaves told Mehta that vandalism of satanic displays on government property has "become as much of a holiday tradition as trampled grandmothers in a Black Friday stampede."

"They attack our property, threaten us over social media, destroy our displays, then bewail the violence they imagine we did them," Mesner, whose real name is Douglas Mesner, said.

"But hopefully, for some, our limited presence and perseverance will prove inspirational in demonstrating that freedom of religion — the ability to believe or disbelieve as we see fit without consequence to our civic capacities — is still alive and more in need of defending now than at any other time in our lives."

Last year, U.S. Navy veteran and former Mississippi House of Representatives candidate Michael Cassidy was charged with a felony hate crime for toppling a satanic display in the Iowa state Capitol that also featured Baphomet. The charge was dropped in May after he pleaded guilty to criminal mischief.

During an interview with The Christian Post last December, Cassidy doubled down on his actions and stated that legislators are overcomplicating evil by claiming that devil worship on government property is protected by the U.S. Constitution.

"The people who wrote our Constitution would be shocked to think of defending Satan as consistent with their beliefs when they wrote the laws that govern our nation," he said.

"People start overcomplicating the truth, which is that God is great and should be honored, and the devil is evil and should not be honored," he said. "I think people are tying themselves in knots trying to justify it, and it's really a lot simpler than that."

Source