Two items:
from the Christian Post News
For the first time in history, a Nativity scene was displayed on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Tuesday
The display, accompanied by prayer, Christmas carols and a reading of the Christmas story, was made possible by a landmark federal court decision that granted Rev. Patrick Mahoney and his supporters the right to peacefully celebrate the Christmas season on Capitol grounds.
Held on the southeastern steps of the Capitol, the display was the culmination of a legal battle (Mahoney v. United States Capitol Police Board, et al) that began over a decade ago when Mahoney, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Christian Defense Coalition, was arrested for his attempts to read the Christmas story from the Bible and hold a Nativity display at the Capitol Christmas tree.
Second:
From Boston.com
The Satanic Temple (based on Salem, Massachusetts, naturally) received a permit to erect a monument of yellow-eyed goat-headed Baphomet near the city’s Nativity scene by the Statehouse. This was done in the name of “pluralism.”
Baphomet was unveiled on Saturday night, and police believe it was vandalized some time between early Sunday morning and Monday afternoon. Only the legs of the black mannequin remained upright. The torso was fallen, and the head decapitated.
I have thrice attempted to display a photo of Baphomet, and each time my computer glitched and would not cooperate. I am just superstitious enough to believe in Occam’s Razor, and so will make no further attempt. But the thing is eerie and hideous as a prop from a horror film, not even a real idol to which an honest pagan might bow. It is a symbol of pure mockery, hatred for Christ.
A spokesman for Concord police confirmed that they responded to the scene Monday and could be investigating the incident as a hate crime.
We live in a world where assassins are lionized for killing innocent businessmen, and lusted after as sex objects, but heroes who save women and children from a smelly, dangerous, drug-addled lunatic on a subway are demonized without limit.
So why not have iconoclasm denounced as a “hate crime”, when the idol being smashed is a living lord of hate from the deeps of hell? Why not have gentle pastors preaching the Christmas story from the capitol steps arrested?