The Baphometic Bowl of Wisdom is a memorial sculpture commissioned by The Satanic Temple, a somber 23-inch black cube inscribed with inverted pentagrams beneath an upturned soldier's helmet. [1] The memorial to fallen soldiers was a collaboration between sculptor Chris Andres and metalworker Adam Volpe. [2] [3]
After the city of Belle Plaine, Minnesota allowed a local veterans group to place a display of a soldier with a rifle kneeling beside a two-foot Christian cross at the city-owned Veterans Memorial Park, the Freedom From Religion Foundation threatened to take the city to court, and The Satanic Temple announced plans to install their own public monument at the park.
The cross memorial was removed in January 2017, but in response to protests and pressure to restore it, city officials designated a portion of the park as a limited public forum where any group, for a temporary period, could pay tribute to the fallen as they saw fit. [4] Both the Belle Plaine Veterans Club and the Satanic Temple applied and were approved to erect monuments. In April 2017, the cross memorial was restored. The Satanic Temple planned to install its memorial in July 2017. [5]
As the plan drew more protests, city officials decided to shut down the limited public forum, ordering the removal of the cross memorial and withdrawing permission for the Temple's monument. The Satanic Temple sued the city seeking $35,000 in damages, claiming violation of the group's First Amendment rights, and breach of contract for rescinding approval after they had already paid to have the marker built. [5] The Satanic Temple lost the court battle with the city of Belle Plaine in 2021: [6] the judge found that Temple had contracted an artist to make the monument before receiving a permit, and the Temple failed to make a "compelling case" that its reputation was hurt by the decision. [7]
Belle Plaine is a city in Scott County, Minnesota, United States, about 40 minutes southwest of Minneapolis. The population was 7,395 at the 2020 census.
A war memorial is a building, monument, statue, or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or to commemorate those who died or were injured in a war.
An eternal flame is a flame, lamp or torch that burns for an indefinite time. Most eternal flames are ignited and tended intentionally, but some are natural phenomena caused by natural gas leaks, peat fires and coal seam fires, all of which can be initially ignited by lightning, piezoelectricity or human activity, some of which have burned for hundreds or thousands of years.
The Soldiers' and Sailors' Memorial Monument is located in Riverside Park, at the intersection of 89th Street and Riverside Drive, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. It commemorates Union Army soldiers and sailors who served in the American Civil War. It is an enlarged version of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, and was designed by the firm of Stoughton & Stoughton with Paul E. M. DuBoy. The monument was completed May 26, 1902.
The Cuyahoga County Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument is a major Civil War monument in Cleveland, Ohio, honoring the more than 9,000 individuals from Cuyahoga County who served the Union throughout the war. It was dedicated on July 4, 1894, and is located on the southeast quadrant of Public Square in Downtown Cleveland. It was designed by architect and Civil War veteran Levi Scofield, who also created the monument's sculptures. The monument is regularly open to the public, free of charge.
The Confederate War Memorial was a 65 foot (20 m)-high monument that pays tribute to soldiers and sailors from Texas who served with the Confederate States of America (CSA) during the American Civil War. The monument was dedicated in 1897, following the laying of its cornerstone the previous year. Originally located in Sullivan Park near downtown Dallas, Texas, United States, the monument was relocated in 1961 to the nearby Pioneer Park Cemetery in the Convention Center District, next to the Dallas Convention Center and Pioneer Plaza.
Confederate monuments and memorials in the United States include public displays and symbols of the Confederate States of America (CSA), Confederate leaders, or Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War. Many monuments and memorials have been or will be removed under great controversy. Part of the commemoration of the American Civil War, these symbols include monuments and statues, flags, holidays and other observances, and the names of schools, roads, parks, bridges, buildings, counties, cities, lakes, dams, military bases, and other public structures. In a December 2018 special report, Smithsonian Magazine stated, "over the past ten years, taxpayers have directed at least $40 million to Confederate monuments—statues, homes, parks, museums, libraries, and cemeteries—and to Confederate heritage organizations."
The Satanic Temple (TST) is a non-theistic organization and new religious movement, founded in 2013 and headquartered in Salem, Massachusetts. Established to "fight a perceived intrusion of Christian values on American politics", congregations have also formed in Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Co-founded by Lucien Greaves, the organization's spokesperson, and Malcolm Jarry, the group views Satan neither as a supernatural being, nor a symbol of evil, but instead relies on the literary Satan as a symbol representing "the eternal rebel" against arbitrary authority and social norms, or as a metaphor to promote pragmatic skepticism, rational reciprocity, personal autonomy, and curiosity.
After School Satan is an after school program project of The Satanic Temple (T.S.T.), a non-theistic United States organization based in Salem, Massachusetts, and is sponsored by Reason Alliance LTD, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. It was created as an alternative to Christian-based after-school groups, specifically at schools that host the Evangelical Good News Club. The program neither teaches about Satanism nor attempts to convert club-goers; they instead teach about rationalism and understanding the world around us. It is against the beliefs of the Satanic Temple to teach religious practice in schools, which is opposite to how the Good News Club functions. The Satanic Temple rejects supernatural beliefs and views Satan as a literary symbol of rebellion against authority, not as a supernatural entity.
The Confederate Soldiers and Sailors Monument was a large granite monument that sat at the south entrance of Garfield Park in Indianapolis for nearly a century, before being removed in 2020. It commemorated the Confederate prisoners of war that died at Camp Morton. At 35 feet (11 m) tall and located in the city's oldest public park, it had been the most prominent of the very few Confederate memorials in the Union state of Indiana. It was dismantled and removed by the city of Indianapolis in June 2020 after a yearslong debate, part of a national wave of removal of Confederate memorials during the Black Lives Matter movement.
There are more than 160 monuments and memorials to the Confederate States of America and associated figures that have been removed from public spaces in the United States, all but five of which have been since 2015. Some have been removed by state and local governments; others have been torn down by protestors.
Baphomet is a bronze statue commissioned by the Satanic Temple depicting Baphomet, a winged, goat-headed, humanoid symbol of the occult. First unveiled in Detroit in 2015, the statue stands 8.5 feet (2.6 m) tall, weighing over 3,000 lb (1,400 kg), and features a prominent pentagram as well as two smiling youths gazing up at the seated central figure. Petitions to display Baphomet on public grounds have resulted in arguments concerning religious equality. Production of the statue, and its initial notoriety, is featured in the documentary Hail Satan?.
American Legion v. American Humanist Association, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with the separation of church and state related to maintaining the Peace Cross, a World War I memorial shaped after a Latin cross, on government-owned land, though initially built in 1925 with private funds on private lands. The case was a consolidation of two petitions to the court, that of The American Legion who built the cross, and of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission who own the land and maintain the memorial. Both petitions challenged the Fourth Circuit's ruling that, regardless of the secular purpose the cross was built for in honoring the deceased soldiers, the cross emboldened a religious symbol and had ordered it altered or razed. The Supreme Court reversed the Fourth Circuit's ruling in a 7–2 decision, determining that since the Cross had stood for decades without controversy, it did not violate the Establishment Clause and could remain standing.
The Minnesota State Capitol Mall includes eighteen acres of green space. Over the years, monuments, and memorials, have been added to the mall. The mall has been called Minnesota's Front lawn and is a place where the public has gathered for celebrations, to party, to demonstrate and protest, and to grieve.